[Sca-cooks] OT, OOP Where to live...Hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes..

[Stefan li Rous]

Mordonna commented:
> Once again, Phoenix wins.  We don't have earthquakes.


Nope, no earthquakes. But there is nothing like walking out of the
air-conditioned building to go to your rental car in August in Phoenix
in the 115 degree plus heat as the asphault sticks to your shoes. It's a
good thing it is a "dry" heat. Dry roasted is always better. :-)

Oh, and Austin has grass. I remember that the only grass at Estrella to
camp on was in those areas that had water sprinklers. I hadn't realized
until later how lucky I had been to have been camping as a guest of the Barony
of the Sun Dragon, since as the (a?) host group their campsite had grass.

> What we DO have are Monsoon storms, including dry thunderstorms, mud falling from the sky and the occasional Haboob (dust storms half a mile high or so). The Rio Salado occasionally floods in El Nino years.  Dumb cowboys have roadbeds going THROUGH the riverbed - without bridges.  When there is sufficient rain or snowmelt upcountry, the roads that do have bridges become packed with traffic.
>
>  You see lots of signs saying "Do not enter dip if flooded"...duh.

Yep. They don't seem to like to build bridges in Phoenix. You are traveling
down a major boulevard and it suddenly ends because there is a one or two
foot deep dry creek bed in front of you. I also noticed that they don't
seem to build storm sewers there. When it rains, and I was there for
several of them, the streets tend to flood over.


I guess each to their own desires. I found it rather interesting that

when I was in a design group in Austin whose headquarters and factory
were in Tempe (a Phoenix suburb), occasional rumors came up about
them combining the two groups. When the rumor was that they were going
to close the Austin facility and move everyone to Phoenix, those in
Austin said they would quit first. Surprising (to me), when the rumor
was that they were going to consolidate everything to Austin, the Phoenix
engineers said the same.


In the late 90s they finally did close the Austin design center and offered
those in Austin jobs in Phoenix. Not one person transferred to Phoenix.
--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas         StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****