Are You Properly Insured for Disaster?

August 29th marks the 5th anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, the most costly disaster in United States history. Check out this article from PR Newswire about the effects of being uninsured or under insured following a natural disaster.

Weekend Road Closures

From Columbia & Cowlitz Railway:

Beacon Hill Drive will have two-lane intermittent road closures from Saturday, August 28th through Sunday, August 29th for railroad trestle maintenance. Work will occur between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Traffic will be stopped in both directions for up to 15 minutes.

The rail crossing on 30th Avenue just north of the Longview Fred Meyer will also be closed for repairs most of Saturday.

The closure will start at 7:00 a.m. and will likely continue until 9:00 p.m.

Local access will be maintained to the point of construction. Drivers are encouraged to take alternative routes.

Weather Alerts and Red Flag Warning

The Portland National Weather Service has issued a Hazardous Weather Outlook and a Red Flag Warning for Cowlitz County and surrounding areas. Temperatures will heat up quickly today reaching the 90's for most inland locations by early afternoon. A combination of hot, dry and unstable conditions combined with gusty offshore winds are creating a high fire hazard today. The red flag warning will be in effect until 11:00 p.m. this evening.

Trestle Work on Westside Hwy to Slow Traffic

NOTICE OF ROAD CLOSURE

Westside Highway (SR411) in the vicinity of milepost 3.35 (near Carnival Market) will have an intermittent two-lane road closure from Friday, August 20 through Sunday, August 22 for railroad trestle maintenance.

Work will resume between the hours of
9:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M.

Traffic will be stopped in both directions for up to 15 minutes.

Follow Cowlitz DEM via Text Messaging

Awhile back, the Cowlitz County Department of Emergency Management launched our Blog and Twitter account as part of our social media footprint. But this week, it became even easier to get information from DEM without ever having to establish your own "Twitter Account." If you are like me and tend to shy away from newfangled technology like smart phones and "the" Twitter, this is a great option for you to stay informed without spending a bunch of money or confusing yourself with apps and data plans and whatever else the kids are doing these days. (Yes, it's true, inside my Gen-X body lives a crotchety geriatric. Get off my lawn! Pull up your pants! Get a haircut! Get a job!)

Anyway, to receive the DEM Twitter messages directly to your cell phone, simply:

1.Put 40404 on the "To" line of your Text Message
2.Put FOLLOW Cowlitzdem in the 'Body" of the Text Message

To stop receiving our Twitter messages via text messaging, simply text UNFOLLOW Cowlitzdem to the same number.

You will receive an auto-message which confirms you are following or have unfollowed our Twitter feed. It takes about 5 minutes to confirm and receive any tweets from that day. If there are no new tweets that day, it may not send you anything until another tweet is entered.

This is an opt-in service and DEM is not able to determine who does or doesn't follow us via text messaging. Standard text-messaging rates will apply based on your cell phone carrier & plan.

We are excited about this option because mobile texting is more common than Twitter accounts in most communities, so it is another way for us to get important messages out to our local community in a timely manner.

So, that's all..until we tweet again....

More on the Sonic Boom

from MSNBC

Fighters sent after Air Force 1 space is violated

SEATTLE — A float plane flying near the Seattle airfield where Air Force One was parked Tuesday triggered a scramble by military fighter jets, resulting in two sonic booms that set off car alarms and caused a failure in a 911 system, authorities said.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the pilot landed on the north end of Lake Washington, about eight miles from Boeing Field, before the fighters arrived. The FAA said the pilot was being questioned by authorities.

A Secret Service spokesman said the incident "appears to be a routine violation of the temporary flight restriction" in place for Air Force One.

President Barack Obama was in Seattle on Tuesday to stump for Sen. Patty Murray on a three-day campaign swing for endangered Democrats, and the airspace around Boeing Field was restricted.

A spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, John Cornelio, said the F-15 jets were sent from Portland, Ore. Cornelio says the fighters were from the Guard's 142nd Fighter Wing.

KING 5 News reported being flooded with calls and e-mails from people who heard and felt the explosions. Many people reported that their homes shook, KING 5 reported.

Detective Ed Troyer with the Pierce Co. Sheriff's Dept. told KING 5 that the 911 system was down via landlines in areas of Pierce County for a time and car and home alarms were set off by the booms.

Kenmore Air president Todd Banks says the incursion was by a plane that landed at his float plane base on Lake Washington. A passenger, Laura Joseph of Normandy Park, told The Associated Press she and the pilot were returning from Lake Chelan in eastern Washington and didn't know of the flight restrictions.

Did you hear the boom?

Washington State Patrol has confirmed that a sonic boom resulted from an authorized military exercise sometime before 2:00 p.m. today. Several residents in the Coal Creek, Stella and Eufala Heights areas felt their homes shake. A sonic boom is the sound associated with the shock waves created by the supersonic flight of an aircraft. Sonic booms generate enormous amounts of sound energy, sounding much like an explosion. The crack of a supersonic bullet passing overhead is an example of a sonic boom in miniature. So, in short, no...it wasn't your neighbor Daryl's various illegal hobbies that finally exploded. Maybe next time. Updated 2:13pm from Katu.com:

Authorities report two very loud "booms" in the region were caused by two fighter jets scrambled out of Portland to investigate an aircraft that got into restricted air space near Air Force One today. More details soon.

2:19 from Komo 4

SEATTLE -- F-15 fighter jets scrambled from Portland to deal with an unknown aircraft that had entered restricted air space over Western Washington caused two sonic booms that were heard across a wide swath of the region, the FAA reported Tuesday.

Several calls from worried residents from Olympia to Seattle flooded emergency dispatchers and the KOMO Newsroom reporting two distinct explosions that rattled windows and shook homes.

The FAA had restricted a large area to aircraft over Seattle due to President Obama's visit.

A spokesman with the Oregon Air National Guard said two F-15s from their 142nd Fighter Wing were scrambled on a "real world mission" from their base at Portland International Airport but could not elaborate on what the mission entailed.