Weighing 9 tons and capable of withstanding 100-mph winds, a rescue/emergency/communications vehicle bought by the city for $175,000 is expected to provide residents with extra protection during hurricanes and other dangerous situations.“It’s a great city and regional tool. We used it on several emergency calls here and in other cities in north county,” said Mayor David Levy.The 20-foot-long All-Hazard Special Response Vehicle, also known as the TK-4, was used by Gardens police on a trial basis for about three weeks in July. Several other South Florida communities considering buying a TK-4 also used the vehicle, said Chris Light, president of Armored Solutions Inc., the Pittsfield, Mass.-based company that manufactures the vehicles.
You have to read the rest of this. Insanity is truly taking over.
Posted by 4closureFraud
19 comments:
Police State Keynesianism.
Can I drive?! ;)
hey, it worked in South Africa?
Marauder - a ten-ton military vehicle so tough it can withstand high explosives
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDoRmT0iRic&feature=related
Seen any hurricanes there recently? Case closed. :(
Great lawn ornament for the community entrance! The only thing missing is a gun turret.
Palm Beach County is one of only 8 Democratic-leaning counties out of 64 in Florida.
Basically Florida is Alabama with a bunch of liberals living on the coasts.
"Police State Keynesianism"
Florida is a major police-state environment. Possesion of one marijuana plant is a felony - intent to distribute.
19 million population and doing a major beat-down on the working man and the poor. Lots of old people with a draw-bridge mentality.
Florida will need all that firepower if things keep going the way they are.
btw, Florida has a huge voter registration edge of Democrats over Republicans (lots of Independents though, apparently right-leaning) but sports a Republican veto-proof majority in the state legislature.
Quit sending your crazy people down here to retire!!! (I'm a native).
Paul,
so are you saying that Democrats bought this vehicle?
rsp,
Matt:
Seems to me both parties are on board for the police state.
It's all about protecting entrenched interests and their power.
Mayor Bloomberg is probably jealous!
but in seriousness, would not a response vehicle like this be useful if first responders had to go out during a hurricane down there? Where this is at ground zero in hurricane alley....
ie unless you go into peoples homes to forcefully remove them during an evacuation order (which I'm sure Libertarians would have a hard time and complain about that), if some stay and end up in trouble during the storm, this may give authorities an option to respond sooner and safely, etc...
Or the option is "let them die"... and then we are back to social darwinism.... seems like with Libertarianism you are damned if you do and damned if you dont...
rsp,
Matt
I've been through a bunch of hurricanes (grew up in Miami) and have never been scared. It was fun, even when the power was out for a week. I had to walk home a mile in one in 1966 or so in 80 mph gusts when I ran out of gas coming home from my girlfriends.
I guess the problem is that back then the population was 3 milion and now it's over 19 million so the potential for mayhem is much greater.
Stiil, in my lifetime the only major event (that I can remember) was hurricane Andrew and the damage from that was in a pretty narrow corridor, more like a tornado than a hurricane.
I don't know if Palm Beach County buying that mini-tank has much to do with the police-state movement but it won't be much help during hurricanes. The biggest problem comes from power outages and food shortages. It would take a military action to force some people to evacuate. Poor people can't afford to evacuate.
Part of the joy of living in Florida (besides the weather, which is great) is everywhere you go, state parks, Tampa during the RNC, etc. people are carrying guns and encouraged to "stand their ground".
We made it a law that doctors can't ask patients if they have guns in the house and are they safely stored away from the kids.
We tried to make it legal to carry guns in school and in courtrooms.
Wonder why the legislators don't want guns allowed in their buildings?
I could go on and on. Florida is schizophrenic politically, full of old farts that want to cut government spending apparently unaware of the irony. Maybe it's that way everywhere, I don't know but with Governor Lex Luthor cutting anything that would help working people or the poor and the war on public workers, spending on old farts is the only thing keeping us from being bankrupt.
Hang on,
HURRICANES are pretty vicious, right?
http://www.illinoisphoto.com/pictures/d/154405-3/14kd588ww-mississippi-hurricane-damage.jpg
"HURRICANES are pretty vicious, right?"
Hurricanes can be destructive, are destructive, but they aren't like tornados.
When I was growing up hurricane parties were common. They generally just made a mess, with some localized severe damage.
With climate change, all bets may be off in the future but we will have to wait and see.
I design buildings in Florida to withstand hurricanes. I don't think it would be practical to design a building to withstand tornados. It would take a design with no exposed windows and probably reinforced concrete construction or be built below grade.
Central Florida has never had a direct hit to my knowledge. In my area the highest recorded winds ever were 80 mph. Bad enough to blow trees down but that's about it.
Further, the vast majority of the homes built in the '20's era are still standing.
The biggest problem with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was flooding, although a lot of buildings were leveled by the storm. In Florida, buildings within 1 mile of the coast are designed to withstand in excess of 150 mph. Flooding isn't generally a problem in Florida.
From my experience, tornados, floods and wildfires are by far the worst natural disasters, and maybe earthquakes, but they are rare.
I worry more about lightning, since Central Florida is the lightning capital of the World.
The biggest problem with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans was flooding, although a lot of buildings were leveled by the storm. In Florida, buildings within 1 mile of the coast are designed to withstand in excess of 150 mph. Flooding isn't generally a problem in Florida.
The NO levies were only constructed to withstand a class 3 hurricane hit dead on. Katrina exceeded the tolerances.
Engineers have to balance planned tolerances with cost and probability of exceeding the tolerance level. They estimated wrong, and the money saved turned out to be a horrible waste.
Tom:
It was well known that the levies wouldn't withstand a greater than class 3 storm and the engineers tried to convince tptb for years that a major re-design was necessary.
You know how that goes, "we can't afford it" instead of "we can't afford not to".
This was near criminal incompetence on the governments end. And the failure still hasn't been taken as seriously as it should have.
Next we need Helicopter gunships to help defend the community from the Republican menace in the next town over. And the Republican town can buy APCs to guard their Chic-fil-A's from their demons.
I'd rather government just bury money so we could all be miners but... hey, armored vehicles are great too.
off topic for paul:
"Central Florida has never had a direct hit to my knowledge."
2004, polk county: hurricanes Charley, Frances and Jeanne
Selise,
Yeah I should have been more clear. All three of those hit us and one, I think the last knocked down our 70-foot oak and tore up my new brick driveway.
What I mean is that it's almost impossible for Central Florida to get a "direct" hit because it's inland, by the time the storm reaches us a good 40-50 mph have been knocked off.
All three of those storms hit land at well over 100 mph.
If one defines a direct hit as the eye passing over then yes, we have had direct hits, but not like when I lived on the coast.
How high were the winds in Polk County? We had gusts up to about 80 mph in Lake County.
paul,
charley was reported at over 100 mph in polk county... don't know about the others.
lots of cool geeky data here:
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/hurricanes/#app=3d30&3e3d-selectedIndex=0
selise;
the other two storms Frances and Jeanne had the names of my wife and my sister.
Should have known they would be trouble.
Some Pics:
Before: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s82/sh/c5cb17fd-f8e0-4d2f-b3d8-2cef4eaacabf/edd6db9b9cbf435d921f42dc956ba915
After: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s82/sh/70caee5b-337d-4b0c-a57d-60037a4a63d4/b3533396e4deced8311cb1f15ede617d
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