From what I have read and observed, Hurricanes can lift and carry surface spray and debris to high levels. They don't just exist from evaporation and with the various chemicals evaporating along with water and recombining with dust particles in the air, I think those chemicals can easily end up in the pond. How else do you account for acid rain? Have you ever looked at a puddle of rain water or snow melt that is in a place where it is clean and protected. A substantial amount of solid material winds up on the bottom of a supposedly clean container. I imagine scientists will learn a lot if there is a big hurricane that has winds that track to the midwest. Yep, Horton. I don't expect it to be easy but I have had a good bit of experience over the years building shelters, greenhouses and kites. I have a semi-permanent metal frame over the pond in the shape of an octagonal pyramid and a couple of rolls of 5 mil. plastic. In this area we can expect a few wind storms before the addition of hurricane tail winds so if I start soon I can try out a couple of different designs. The shape has given really good results in the several years it has been up. The 5 mil stuff may be too heavy though. I still smile at the memory of some of the kites my friends and I have inadvertently created. One had the Great Lakes authorities quite upset since it showed up on their monitoring equipment and they thought they had a small plane in trouble during a bad storm. That was a rather large greenhouse though. It took 10 of us all day to build it and less than an hour for every tie down to fail. It was 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. The problem in the design was because the prevailing wind had not been judged correctly. The wind went in one end, filled it with air like a balloon and popped it off of the framing. Half inch poly tubing was carried with it so it kept air inside. The owner was very embarrassed.

Did we come to an end on this thread? ""Let's brain storm: thermal mass materials"" I think we agree for all practical purposes then water is the best for thermal storage. Several interesting issues emerged and I think they are important. "Seems to me is we may be switching our night time heating bill to a day time heating bill..." Yes, that may be a bonus in an unconventially heated greenhouse. During the day it may involve stoking up a wood, corn, straw bale, oil fired furnace to build enough heat to get through the night. In gbrendemuehls scenario you just have to do the "burn" once every three days. ""3 day storage reserve and and 50 degree termperature range, the needed volume of water is about 4600 cubic ft. or 34,500 gallons"" In the test greenhouse that is just under 2 feet deep. Why is that not practical? I admit that retro fitting a 34,500 gallon under floor holding tank in this case is not possible bit in the next one...... ""Large greenhouses are built on a grade of about 1 to 2ft per 100. Insuring the any water on the floor/ground will run out of the house."" You heard the latest the EPA are throwing at us? Greenhouse waste water is going to be classed as toxic waste. (as it should be.....) Don't ask me for a link to verify this because I have not looked. However I do know I am the only one in this area with a greenhouse because the other guy who ran a commercial setup quit when he got slapped with a $17,000 water treatment bill. Storing and re-using the run off may be a side benefit. The most important issue for us may be the fact that this thermal mass, free heat concept does not scale up to large commercial operations. We all know it works down to the "Wall-O-Water" level and up as far as 150 gallons of water under a 4x8 bench but to take it past that point you are looking at some really big heat exchangers and pumps. For Mylu, For you, the only benefit a water based heating system with the water under the benches would be is that with a prolonged power failure you would not lose your crop.

Yes, the majority of us can find another job. BUT, and this is a BIG BUT!, we can NOT find jobs on the island. Moving is not a viable option for the majority of us right now. After all we have just been hit by a major hurricane. Noone seems to realize how bad this storm was. It is the largest storm ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. It has already become the THIRD most expensive storm to hit the US, after Katrina and Andrew and the costs are going up daily. Money is even tighter on the island, we had to evacute and stay away from our homes for two weeks. The cost of gasoline was almost $4 per gallon when we evacuated. We spent over $500 just on gas to evacuate everyone, then we had to drive back and forth, trying to get on the island, trying to find FEMA.... A lot of people, most of my family, didn't get paid while we were gone, and there is no money coming in to anyone on the island. The majority of stores, restaurants and other business' are closed. Blockbuster, Hollywood video, HEB, Arlans, The Yacht Club, Bath Junkie, Nates... these are a few of the business' that won't reopen. We spent the money that would have been used to pay utilities, house notes, car notes on evacuation. FEMA approved EMERGENCY housing for me 4 weeks after the storm. My mom got approved last week!! My brother was told he could live at his house and was denied housing-he had 9' of water in his house!! Most neighborhoods are devastated. Over 1/2 of the island still has no power, or gas. Debris lines the streets. Mold is everywhere. The hospital is closed. That means that the indigent of Texas have NO place to obtain medical care. Yes, people have died from lack of medical care. Several after the storm because they couldn't get dialysis, cancer and heart patients have died because they couldn't get care. Even a small injury means you are lifeflighted to Houston because UTMB is basically a clinic right now instead of an ER. There is no level 1 trauma center near us, the closest is over an hour away in downtown Houston. Add to that the fact that a lot of people that were laid off have been at UTMB their entire careers. One of the busiest internal med physicians was laid off, she was a nurse here, went to medical school here and then into practice-all at UTMB. Dr. Ivey has devoted his entire career to making UTMB the facility it was. It's not possible to find another position at another facility where you will be a tenured faculty at the same standing. A researcher/faculty/nurse/whatever is really going to have to start their career all over again. The people of UTMB worked very hard for years to make this institution what it was, it was hard work and dedication by an enormous number of people to make us one of the highest ranked ER's in the country. To become a magnet hospital. That is gone. Years and years of work, millions of dollars spent, for what? It's all moot now, the programs are closed, the facilities sit empty and rotting. It was a huge slap in the face too that the University had a big splashy grand opening ceremony to open the bio-hazard lab. The same day they announced that they would be laying off almost 4,000 people and cutting out healthcare for the indigent, and everyone else for that matter. What does this say about us as a society? We can take care of superbugs that can be used for warfare but your grandma with cancer just has to die. People that have devoted their lives to UTMB, people that stayed during the storm, that worked like demons before, during and after the storm, didn't think about their own safety, these are the people that UTMB fired. The nurses at the access to care were back to work less than a week after the storm, they worked in a hallway of a clinic, with NO guidance, they handled every single patient call, they refilled prescriptions for transplant patients, for cancer patients, diabetics, pain patients, etc. with no physicians available, they didn't know where anyone was, what was going on, their homes were destroyed, some lost their vehicles, yet, they went to work everyday and they took care of patients, they managed to save lives, to fill needs and worked under terrible stressful conditions. And their reward? They were all laid off, have to reapply for their jobs and only 9 of 15 will be "rehired". AND to make it even worse they will have to work through the holidays, they will be working Christmas day, Christmas ever, etc. and then will be unemployed! Employees were called at home and told to come in for a meeting, they were pulled away from their desks where they were working, and then, in a room full of people were told they were being laid off, then sent BACK to work! Can you imagine? You've lost everything, you are struggling to keep it together, you're family is scattered, your car flooded, your dog lost and then to be told you are being laid off but you have to work through the holidays! UTMB systematically shut down the other health care facilies n the island, they drove off private physicians. There was a plan to do this. It was not accidental. And now they have abandoned the citizens of not only Galveston but of Texas. We should all be outraged at what has and is happening here. There are still people missing, the cadaver dogs located multiple locations but they still have NOT been searched, it's too remote, there is no money. How much do we spend daily on the war in Iraq? Yet, there are people living in tents and cars, people are dead and their bodies rotting in the marshes, there is no medical care for the indigent, the city is fighting over where to put the FEMA trailers-some morons are worried about the "image" of trailers on Broadway, there are boats on 61st, the beachfront and bay are full of debris. Hitchcock, Freddiesville, San Leon, LaPorte, Bolivar and multiple other small communities are devasted and forgotten. The fishing industry is in ruins, oyster beds/reefs destroyed. The decision by the UT board of regents was not economically based, please don't make that mistake, it was a cold and calculated move that they have been trying to accomplish for years. Ike was just the excuse. I used to be proud to work at UTMB, I am now embarrassed. I used to love living in Galveston, now I am disgusted and heartbroken. I will stay. I will continue working at UTMB but I will never be happy working here and I will never trust them. I will never trust the city management. I'm almost afraid to drive over the causeway, what if they decide again not to let us in? This is our home. This is our community. Our roots run deep. We survived hurricanes before but we have never had to survive the powers that be. We might not survive them. What Ike didn't destroy the city management, the UT board of regents, FEMA and the state governments may just destroy. Forever. Tally

All is well here, except I may need to change my user name to sweatinginplace :). We lost our power Saturday at midnight and Uverse (wifi and tv) cut out Monday afternoon, so we've been completely out of touch. I live in an older neighborhood full of lush tree canopy and aging power poles and lines. We always lose electricity quickly and get it back slooooooowly. As of this morning we'd seen no sign of a tree trimming crew much less power trucks to deal with a lot of downed trees and lines. FPL, our energy provider, claims power will be back by midnight Sunday but based on past storm experience I doubt it--I'd bet midweek next week earliest. Fortunately we had no damage; we have huge oak trees surrounding the house and I was so afraid one would fall, or a large limb would crash down. Despite the misery of living without electricity my wonderful, wonderful husband has kept me as comfortable as possible. We have a generator and he really likes working with electricity so over the years he's set it up to run the power through circuits into the house, meaning normal operation of lights, tv (except after UVerse disconnected so no signal), ceiling fans and small appliances. This time we realized the generator would also power the wall unit AC we have in our Florida room so I dragged a mattress out there and have been comfortable to sleep. Forget roses and candy, THAT is a keeper of a spouse! And we feel incredibly blessed that the vacation/retirement house we bought 5 months ago in Key Largo came through the storm unscathed-HUGE relief. We have direct deep water access meaning the house is on a short canal on the Atlantic side of the key; climb in the boat and 45 seconds later you're on the open ocean. So we were frantically worried up in Miami about the storm surge and of course the wind. The water came within inches of the top of our stairs from the dock to the back yard but didn't overflow into the pool or lower level. Minor wind damage to screens but overall the house is in perfect condition. Most amazingly of all--the electricity came back yesterday, the UVerse is humming and everything is perfectly normal inside! We decided to bug out of Miami so packed up the cats and the refrigerators, turned off the generator and now I"m sitting comfortably in air conditioning with laundry going downstairs and all the comforts of home. We've got many friends down here and the damage and destruction is heart breaking. Even in the upper Keys which didn't get the full force storm, lots of people have flood damage and the debris fields are stunning to see. However it is awe inspiring to watch the outpouring of help. From FEMA trucks to electric restoration convoys to giant Salvation Army semis with supplies to C-130 planes and helicopters flying over in formation....a steady stream of resources. It's a reminder that despite politics or divisions within our country, when something terrible happens Americans pull together to help.