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Another severe storm lashed the U.K. on Monday, leaving two people dead and a trail of destruction in the wake of its fury.
Many rail, air and ferry services were disrupted, and it was chaos on the nation’s roads, with the U.K’s Network Rail declaring that storm damage was worse than that caused by recent super-storm Jude.

The U.K. had 34 flood warnings in place, and Christmas travelers were confronted by gale force winds of up to 90mph and torrential rain that left many places flooded and thousands of homes without power. As many people prepared to travel home today to celebrate Christmas with their families, the roads were still littered with debris and standing water from yesterday’s freak weather.
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6.5 million people in the Northeast US are without power, including all of Manhattan below 39th Street. Nuclear power plants in the region are on alert because of the danger that they may lose outside power supplies, or their water exchange systems may be flooded. The power plants rely on diesel generators for backup power. Outside power is essential to the continued functioning of their cooling pumps.
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A worldwide flood that took place 14,600 years ago is almost certainly the origin of some of the oldest of all human stories, the flood tales of Native America, the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh and Noah’s Flood.

Scientists now know that it was caused by a very rapid and intense warming event and the collapse of ice sheets all across the planet. But why did it happen?

One theory is that it was caused by a comet striking the Laurentian Ice Sheet above what is now the Great Lakes. This led to the disintegration of the ice sheet and a subsequent dramatic melt and rise in temperatures. This theory is discussed in the Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes by scientists Richard Firestone, Allen West and Simon Warwick-Smith.
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If waterworld is our path in the future, we may ALL need levees to keep away the water, and if they fail, like they did in New Orleans during Katrina, we’ll need PLUGS.

Researcher Wil Laska has invented technology to quickly seal a levee breach and reduce floodwaters through the opening within four to six hours of detection, before the water can do major damage. He thinks the best solution is a large balloon or tub that is light enough to be transported by helicopter and flexible enough to adapt to a wide range of environmental situations. When launched or dropped, the tube would in quick succession fill with water, float on the flood currents to the breach, and adhere to the breach in the levee that had failed. When Laska tested this, it worked.
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