Sol 241
MISSION LOG – SOL 241
Is it too much to ask- is it too much to fucking ask- that this planet quit trying to kill me and my friends? Really?
Apparently there’s this storm, currently on the other side of the planet, but it’s acting like it has my name written on it. And knowing this goddamn planet, it probably does. “To my biggest fan, Mark Watney, Thanks for everything, signed Mars. P. S., fuck you.”
But forecasting Mars weather is a very young and error-prone science. The storm is still at least six days away, and it might turn away. Of course, that’s only if our luck changes. But in the meantime NASA has ordered us to prepare to take shelter in the cave farm. That means moving the remaining food packs plus a short supply of cut hay and potatoes back to the farm, along with all the medical supplies and a few other things.
In addition to that, we need to do a thorough inspection and policing of the area around the Hab, especially the windward (east) side. The pop-tents have to be emptied and deflated. The scrap metal pile needs to be buried to prevent the wind from turning it into shrapnel. We need to inspect and make sure all the solar panels and exterior power cables are secured, since those solar panels could make dandy kites otherwise. (The Sol 6 storm didn’t send them flying partly because the panels get staked into the ground, partly because the angled panels were pointed into the wind, so the storm pushed down on them instead of lifting them up.)
But the biggest chore is Friendship. We have to get all the rocks we can as soon as possible under the ship so that it’s beached when the storm hits. Right now the ship’s sitting way off the ground on its landing gear with nothing holding it down but landing gear and one power cable. There’s a chance the storm would overpower the wheel brakes and push the ship just like it caught the MDV’s unused emergency parachute and beat the shit of out it. If Friendship takes a tumble like the MDV did, we’ll have to buy a bus ticket for Schiaparelli, because we sure as hell won’t be driving on our own.
It’s a lot of work, and it’s going to take days if we keep up our daily couple of hours with Dragonfly in the cave. So it’s a good thing NASA is getting us started early. We began with the inspections, since those are the most important thing. Mostly I spent time staking down all the solar panels I’d stolen from the solar farm for the Pathfinder trip and never put back properly. For day to day use it didn’t matter that much, but with Marsicane Two headed our way, everything needs to be down and tight.
I remember the first time I saw hurricane prep in Houston, during my initial astronaut training. I couldn’t believe how people rushed to the stores for plywood and nails, tape, milk and water, and canned Beanie-Weenies and the like. The first time, when the storm turned north and hit Louisiana with a fizzle, I was amused by all the silliness.
Then came Hurricane Bernie, the next year. Category two. Ninety-five mile per hour winds at the eyewall, which came ashore on the Bolivar Peninsula. The storm fizzled a few hours after it came inland, but it was still enough to bring hurricane force winds to Johnson Space Center and the surrounding area.
NASA evacuated, but some people I knew invited me to a hurricane party well above the expected surge line. Vogel was curious about hurricanes, and I was curious about an alcoholic beverage called a hurricane, so we stayed in Webster while everyone else bailed. It was fun for a while, until the power went out about twenty minutes before landfall, and then all we could hear besides each other was wind.
And God, was there wind. It howled around the house until the whole building shook- even at “only” seventy miles per hour. It sounded like the storm wanted to peel off the crunchy wood wrapping to get at the gooey human center.
Not all the windows were boarded up, and I got to see outside. Shit was blowing everywhere, including tree limbs and sheet metal. But surprisingly, not much rain. My hosts told me that wasn’t unusual. You didn’t get heavy rain until the hurricane slowed down, most of the time. That was why Harvey was so horrible- the storm spun down almost immediately when it hit land and then refused to leave. By comparison, they told me, this storm would leave only about eight to ten inches.
Yeah. “Only” eight to ten inches of rain.
Other guests talked about Hurricane Ike- the storm that inspired the “Ike Dike” which is finally, FINALLY under construction. One or two of the older folks remembered Tropical Storm Allison, which was like a mini-Harvey. And there was one old grandma who talked about Alicia and how all the windows in the skyscrapers of downtown Houston got knocked out by the winds.
These people bought their bottled water and Beanie-Weenies because they’d seen true disaster- and yet they stayed, because so far as they were concerned, Hurricane Bernie was a flyweight, a pissant little blow with ambition beyond its means. They weren’t crazy for being prepared. They knew.
And the party went on, as the wind howled and then eventually died off. The locals took it all in stride. I couldn’t believe it. Neither could Vogel, who said something about all Americans being wehrsinnig or something like that. I don't know how to spell in German.
At one point I pointed out how crazy all of this was, and my hosts pointed out that their home was above the level of the forecast storm surge. You ran from water, they said. For wind you hunker down. There just weren’t enough roads to get everybody out of the wind forecast zone. (And a few people told me horror stories of having run out of gas on Interstate 45 during Hurricane Rita. Two hundred miles of de facto parking lot, as four million people tried to get out of the way of a storm that ended up missing Houston by eighty miles.)
The next day we both volunteered at the Red Cross to help however we could, but there wasn’t much for us to do. Utility trucks from other states ran up and down the streets, fixing power lines. Most of the stores- those that didn’t have roofs peeled off or windows busted- were reopened by the end of the day after the storm. Only three people died- there’s that “only” again. A month later, you couldn’t tell anything had happened, unless you went out onto Bolivar Peninsula to see where everything had been knocked flat yet again.
I didn’t mock Texans for rushing out to buy milk and bread anymore. But I still thought they were crazy.
So, how does this apply to Mars? We can’t run. We don’t know where the storm’s headed, and we can’t get more than seventy kilometers in any one direction anyway. That’s not going to be enough to avoid the storm even if it gave us a written itinerary.
So we’re going to hunker down, and be grateful there isn’t any rain.
By the way, I’d kill for milk, bread, and/or Beanie-Weenies.
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"rode out Harvey"
Why the hell did you do that?!
Dear Mars,
For that which we are about to receive, may we be thankful.
Sincerely, Mark Watney
P.S., fuck you too.
My one hurricane experience was Fran in 1996. I was far enough inland that the only problem was downed tree limbs and power outages.
8939918 No wind to speak of. By the time Harvey got here, it was nothing but rain... rain that would not stop. Fortunately my home is on exceptionally well-drained land, so there was absolutely no chance of flooding, but I was shut in for three days when all the roads out got closed.
8939921 I remember Harvey. By the time it got to Kansas, it was just a drizzle.
(At least with tornadoes, we can say "It missed us by a block")
Will Spitfire regale the crew with tales of Cloudsdale Water Deliveries?
Presumably, due to exposure to the Friendship Journal, Cherry and Starlight are at least passingly acquainted with the “Hurricane Fluttershy” story...
"BolivarPeninsula"
"Bolivar Peninsula"?
(That one appeared twice that I saw.)
"JohnsonSpaceCenter"
"Johnson Space Center"?
8939942 The Space Stealing Goblin strikes again.
8939927 Oh, we get tornadoes, too. Not quite as many as you do, because the trees break up the winds, but some.
Some places, yeah, its hurricanes, some places, like here, its tornados or fires. We had a tornado remove metal from its concrete housing about 50-100 feet one day, quite the sight to see, thought it did cancel school.
You get used to things as a native in some places, and yeah. It's a native thing.
I send my love to dragonfly... Get well soon... The others miss you
8939950
Heh. :)
Houston resident checking in. I've been here for Allison through Harvey.
My neighborhood wasn't affected by Allison much. We drain straight into the Bay. Same story for Harvey, but more on that later.
Rita was a clusterfuck thanks to Katrina. More people died in the evac than in the storm. I was stuck in traffic for six hours and we only made it to I10 before calling it quits (family had a second house there). Worst part is we never even lost power in the neighborhood.
Ike was a different beast. I actually lost my home from the storm surge while I stayed with my dad.
Now Harvey... Fuck Harvey. Thursday, my mother and I go down to the old neighborhood and get my grandmother to take her back with us. Sunday rolls around, and we're getting water in the house. It was a mad dash to pack what we could and head south to Grandma's house where we rode out the last two days.
My personal hope is Dragonfly emerges from her cocoon a fullblown Princess or nascent Queen. Because she is the only Changeling on the planet, her body might be reacting alot more differently then expected. We need our love bug back. And we need Mark and her to hook up. Because.
After binging this, I immediately loaded up my Martian audiobook, and this story has made it even more delightful a book. I love how good this is. Thank you for writing it.
Were there ppl saying "only" to 27 in of rain? Don't matter over days ir not.
8939918
For some, it is because they have learned what to expect.
For others, it is because they refuse to learn, are incapable of learning, or are stubborn to the point of foolishness.
I escaped the worst of Harvey, myself... by about two meters of elevation. I still want to move north as soon as circumstance permits.
8939977 The worst-hit areas around Galveston Bay got about SIXTY inches of rain.
Hence, "only" twenty-seven.
I was out of town when Harvey hit, and actually trying to get back to Houston from East Texas, but I was living in La Porte when Ike decided he wanted to come play. House was probably about 500 yards from the bay. That was fun.
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/the-fact-and-fiction-of-martian-dust-storms
Seeing "The Martian" on TV and reading this story got me thinking a little bit about the dangers of windstorms on Mars. Other than learning that Mars has much lower air density than Earth (about %1 of Earth air density) and that a storm at any given wind speed on Mars is FAR less dangerous than equal winds on Earth, I didn't give it much more thought than "movies/stories are exaggerating the damage capability of Martian storms for dramatic effect."
Then I watched the trailer for a game called "Surviving Mars" and saw wind turbines... and I had to call bullshit. This lead to a lengthy discussion with an engineering friend about just how stupid wind turbines on Mars was. Far more math was done than we wanted to on a Saturday evening.
The key issue with wind on Mars is the air density. Mars' air density is less than 1% of Earth's. This basically means that to achieve the same force on a given surface on Mars you would need wind speeds 100 times greater than on Earth.
100MPH winds on Mars wouldn't even feel like a light breeze on Earth.
Dust storms on Mars would be less "batten down the hatches, it might kill us" and more "cover up everything and get inside so we don't get more of the superfine dust in delicate gear than we have to."
TL:DR - A big storm makes for a great dramatic element in a story. But the reality of a storm on Mars is that we'd barely notice it if it wasn't for the dust.
8939921
I've had similar experiences living on top of a hill overlooking a "lake" (actually a dammed section of a river that's slightly wider and slower than the rest) in Iowa. We get pretty heavy rains all the time, and the area had especially bad flooding in 2008 and 2010, but a flood that reached my house would have to be over 150 feet, which is animal-gathering apocalyptic.
8939983
Why? The north has blizzards
Semi relevant: https://what-if.xkcd.com/157/
One of the title texts seemed fitting. Fig 14, the first moon speed graph's title text:
>DO NOT USE THIS GRAPH FOR PLANNING PURPOSES. It's not that it isn't accurate, it's just that any kind of plan that involves this type of data is probably a bad one.
I half way want/demand you use said data, for the simple fact that yes, when watney et al have to use it it is indeed a bad idea. (Perhaps though, the least worse somehow too)
Feel free to ignore if it doesn't fit, but xkcd is always worth spreading.
8939996
Mars in The Martian has a higher atmospheric pressure than in the real world. It's a necessary divergence to make the storm work to set off the whole story. There simply wasn't any other way the author could come up with for stranding one person alone on Mars presumed dead yet actually survive in the way they wanted. There's plenty of minuscule changes in ancient conditions that could lead to a higher atmospheric density on Mars in the present.
Also Mar's atmospheric density is actually around 1.7% of Earth's at the surface. Its pressure is only like 0.6% of Earth's. Radically different gas mixture, temperature, and gravity add up to pretty different results so .6% pressure doesn't directly mean .6% density.
I was in Borrego Springs on a family vacation, about 150 miles away from Northridge. It felt like the whole world was shaking apart.
The toughest human alive ain’t shit next to Mama Nature.
I was watching Harvey on Radar and the thing I was most shocked to sea was the precipitation front actually form into a standing wave..
Then I drove around Austin Saturday into the night while the storm churned overhead. So many people in Austin had done heavy duty hurricane prep runs themselves. I shook my head.
"200 miles inland, and 650 feet above sea level and well outside the track for anything in the models aside from some tropical storm winds, and these people act like we're on the beach with Katrina bearing down on us."
I think we got sustained up to barely 40 mph here. It pushed some trees down here and there, but did nothing substantial. I was out all night driving around town (UBER), and it was unbelievably busy. I'm guessing all the other drivers wimped out for fear of weather-made car accidents.... And all the people who realized Austin was fine were out as normal. Worst it did to me was kick me around a bit on elevated sections of freeway. Otherwise, we've had gusty wind days more rough.
8940025
Oh wow, what-if hasn't updated in forever it feels like.
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit." At least Mars doesn't have dragons—oh wait. Ponies = Hobbits, confirmed.
8939927
Or that it was next door, or that it dropped a half a mile down the road we just crossed .
8940153
And then there is Void Dragon, hehe.
Uhh...
I made a photo survey of TCEQ sampling stations in the Lower Neches basin in spring before Harvey. It became one of our unasked for educational deliverables for our contract with the agency. In it, I included some Google Earth Pro aerials of some of the near peak water levels at photographed locations like the Salt Water Barrier and south of I-10 in Beaumont.
If an F-5 tornado, like in Twister, was the "Finger of God", Harvey was where He plopped His Fat Ass...
...
I may put that narrative on the Website.
This sentence changed from italic to roman style after wehrsinnig. Maybe wehrsinnig should be roman and the rest italic?
8939973
As was mentioned in the author's notes of sol 229, that was never going to be a thing for multiple reasons.
I lived through all the hurricanes you mentioned (well, 'cept Bernie obviously). Some, like Ike, I had to evacuate for (storm surge), while others, like Harvey, I didn't (rainfall isn't a problem when you live close to the bay, it just washes away almost as quickly as it comes down).
Hunkering down is okay as long as you've planned ahead and are prepared. Having a hurricane party with alcohol and multiple guests with multiple vehicles all crammed into the same space is not okay.
Alcohol and hurricanes don't mix ya'll. You wouldn't believe how many of those "tragic" deaths from somebody driving into a flooded street and getting washed away was 'cause they "misjudged" (i.e., alcohol impairment) the level of the water.
Plus, when the toilet stops working and you have a party full of alcohol-inflated guts and can't go outside to relieve yourself, well, good luck to ya.
8939937
I'm not concerned with that, I just wanted to share an article that reminded me of this story, and that readers of this story might find interesting.
8940228
Not being familiar with the relevant mythos, all I got from that was, "blah blah blah MEGA DOOM DRAGON blah blah IMPRISONED INSIDE MARS blah blah END OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT blah blah blah". Still, yikes.
I'm so glad to live in ah area where any such stuff is considered freak and happens extremely rarely (although slightly more often the more we fuck up the climate).
Hurry up, you lazy bug, we love ya!
Always confused me why Americans build thin flimsy garden sheds in extreme weather areas, until I did th maths on the aerodynamic properties of dense engineering brick, then realised it was for teh same reason Japanese cities were made out of thin slats and paper.
When it gets ripped apart, because it will, theres little to burn, to fall, to rebuild etc.
Otherwise coastal residentces would be built on 20 metre pillars and formed out of metre thick reinforced foamed concrete. Would help with the Aircon as well.
And then after all, that, The Queen Of The Seas would lose power and mooring and come barreling into dock like Bunyans Axe.
I hope they have a better time benching Freindship, and cable staking it down, than what happened with the Tirpitz.
UK has it a lot easier, so far, record rainfall in catastrophe areas roughly decadeal is 10 inch overall in a day, where I live the average is 60 inches over the entire year, and thats classed as wet, or temperate rainforest. I think theres been 6 inch in a day here and the rivers were running to the top of the roadside walls where it wasnt flooding. Most of that in a stalled hour or two thunderstom sequence.
And if you build a ship capable of handling the worse the planet weather can throw at you, theres always Solar Storms.
8940013
Probably because, in the north, there are houses not in Tornado Alley, not in the Earthquake-prone Pacific regions, not on the Hurricane-prone Atlantic coast, too elevated to flood, not too close to the tallest things around (to avoid lightning damage), and without a "wildfire season" of significant consequence.
(I live in the northern end of southern Ontario, Canada and, aside from a tornado in one nearby city in the year of my birth and a windstorm this year which ripped our vehicle tent's anchors out of the ground but spent its fury further south or east, nature hasn't really thrown anything at us which might require home repairs.)
there are a few of us around that still remember hurricane Agnes back in 1972, google hurricane Agnes in PA now back than no one even had a clue hear in PA i mean we are 900+ miles in land O boy did we all get educated.
a grate chapter and a vary good read.
i am rooting for Dragonfly pulling threw.
some how i still think she will end up a miner Queen or proto Queen if you will.
8939934
Right, where Spitfire stood by and did absolutely nothing to help the ponies of Ponyville! Another shining moment in her career.
I can only imagine how Dragonfly might interpret the Marsicane. If the Death Box is calmly chanting "Die," then the planet will be shouting it.
I like to think Starlight was just the tiniest bit reluctant for a moment before agreeing
My family hunkered down for Hurricane Ivan(Cat 4). The city I’m in got the direct hit. Shit was not fun.
You know what they call us Tehachapi folks? Wind People. Theres a wind farm here for a reason. We are constantly dealing with high winds. This year alone weve had 5 days above 50 meter/seconds. Everything we do outdoors we have to take wind into consideration. Those plastic deck chairs? Forget it, you need metal or concrete. Patio umbrellas? Lol. No. And your tarps better be SECURE or they will end up in the next town.
8940380
In Southern California, we have to build all of our buildings to be very flexible. When the ground shakes 360 days of 365 a year, if your buildings are rigid, they crack and crumble. The roads we drive on have what we motorcyclists call tar snakes all over the place because of cracking due to earth movement, and wild temperature changes. Think 40°F+ differences between night and day.
8940588
Worse... The Marsicane will coincide with them hunkering down in the cave. And using the projector will start another heart song.
This time, a new voice will join them. The voice of mars.
And it will be singing:
I do not envy Mark & Co, if I'm being completely honest. Worst that's ever come through my hometown is a couple of EF-0 tornadoes, and even then they really only managed to uproot a couple trees and rip the roofs off of a couple shoddily constructed sheds before pretty much despawning as fast as they had touched down...
Where I live, the rain comes in the form of a six month-long shower. The wetness arrives in October or November and doesn't really stop for more than a handful of hours a week until April. No hurricanes, and tornadoes are crazy rare. That being said, while the sky gives us gentle moisture for half of the year, the ground beneath our feet hates us. Mudslides are common (see the six month-long rains each winter), earthquakes happen, and there're half a dozen fire mountains waiting for the chance to blacken the skies, and drown our cities under rivers of super-heated mud.
Two guesses where I live.
Pft, a hurricane Mark, that’s all you’ve been through. That’s nothing, try having to go through three hurricanes in six weeks. Charlie, Francis, Jeanne. Yeah, 2004 wasn’t too pleasant for Florida.
We got the remnants of a few tropical storms and some stalled troughs that dumped insane amounts of rain here in NJ. One dropped 22 inches just north of Philadelphia and flooded the Pennypack creek 10 feet over its banks, which are usually 6 feet below the trails on the sides.
And then we had Sandy, which actually did very little my neighborhood since we seem to be in a magical area free of most devastation. Around us, through, lots of flooding and the shore communities were obliterated in some spots (Seaside Heights and Lavalette I witnessed about two weeks later when a few main roads were re-opened, with the old roller coaster in the ocean and many houses moved out into the streets and others totally smashed) but a large number of summer cottages just a couple miles away south, near Island Beach State Park, were virtually untouched. The waves there barely breached the dunes. The shoreline's shape and seabed focused the energy of the surge into very specific locations, leaving other areas mostly dry.
media.nbcnewyork.com/images/1200*675/roller+coaster+ocean.jpg
mholloway63.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/sandy1_custom-2ddfa227526773c3203441cdb10e7f436f2ae171-s51.jpg
What I found interesting was how many of the houses actually withstood being ripped off their foundations and floating away in the massive waves without being completely crushed. The older ones had very solid construction and acted more like boats. Many new ones in the wealthy areas were simply blown apart.
My great-aunt and uncle's old home was flooded on the first floor, but didn't move an inch, having been anchored to its foundation.
Lucky lucky. The company I work for is based out of Aransas Pass, maybe 10 miles from Harvey's landfall. Heck of a mess to clean up!