- A mature hurricane is by far the most powerful event on the earth; the combined nuclear arsenal of the United States and the former Soviet Union doesn’t contain enough energy to keep a hurricane going for one day.
- A typical hurricane encompasses a million cubic miles of atmosphere and could provide all the electric power needed by the United States for three or four years
- Birds drown in flight, unable to shield their upward-facing nostrils
- During the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, wind surpassed 200 miles an hour and people caught outside were sandblasted to death. Rescue workers found nothing but their shoes and belt buckles.
- In 1970, a hurricane drowned half a million people in what is now Bangladesh.
- In 1938, a hurricane put downtown Providence, Rhode Island, under ten feet of ocean. The waves generated by that storm were so huge that they literally shook the earth: seismographs in Alaska picked up their impact five thousand miles away.
- So much rain can fall during a hurricane—up to five inches an hour—that the soil liquifies and hillsides slump into valleys.
- There are roughly 350 Pararescue jumpers in the United States
- Pararescue jumper dropout rate is often over 90 percent.
- In one drill, the team swims their normal 4,000-yard workout, and then the instructor tosses his whistle into the pool. Ten guys fight for it, and whoever manages to blow it at the surface gets to leave the pool. His workout is over for the day. The instructor throws the whistle in again, and the nine remaining guys fight for it. This goes on until there’s only one man left, and he’s kicked out of PJ school.
Like this:
Like Loading...
Bullet Point Reading 