ITV

Tag: Hurricane

  • PBS special in November follows efforts to save animals from the wrath of Hurricane Katrina

    MUMBAI: US pubcaster PBS has announced that its programming block Nature will present a special Katrina’s Animal Rescue on 20 November, 2005
     
     

    They are the flood victims who were left behind — the tens of thousands of household pets separated from their owners in the aftermath of the natural disaster Hurricane Katrina. This special one-hour episode takes viewers to the front lines of the battle to rescue these helpless animals before it’s too late.

    Navigating the flooded streets of New Orleans the show follows animal rescue teams in their search for survivors — a dog stranded on a rooftop, a kitten trapped in the branches of a tree — all without food and water for days or weeks. With the odds against them, rescuers use any means necessary — up to and including a National Guard tank to reach these animals in distress.
     
     

    Amazingly, amidst all the chaos and destruction, a lucky few are reunited with their owners. Along the way, the programme explores what happened to the other animal inhabitants of New Orleans – from the zoo and aquarium to the wildlife of Lake Pontchartrain.

    Another PBS documentary New Orleans: Anatomy of a Disaster on 22 November will unfold a minute-by-minute reconstruction of the disaster told through eyewitness testimony. What made this storm so destructive? How accurately did scientists predict its impact? And why are powerful hurricanes like Katrina likely to strike more often? The special will explore why the storm was so deadly and why flood defenses and relief planning failed to match Katrina’s fury.

  • Discovery to telecast a special programme on hurricane Katrina

    MUMBAI: Discovery channel in an attempt to understand the hurricane ‘Katrina’ is presenting its premiere programme Killer Hurricane : Anatomy of Katrina. The programme details out the entire catastrophe – Katrina’s life-cycle, its destruction potential, the phenomena of ‘storm surge’ and the pioneering technique used for measuring its destructive strength which helped save thousands of lives by giving out the evacuation warning.

    Discovery Channel will present Killer Hurricane : Anatomy of Katrina on Saturday, 17 September at 9 pm with a repeat at the same time on 18 September.
     
     

    The show begins begins in the early hours of 29 August as the scientists at the National Hurricane Center in Miami scramble to track the storm and predict where and when she’ll make the landfall. Chronicling the path of destruction, the programme also explains why the region’s geography makes it vulnerable to the hurricane Katrina.

    “The programme presents a comprehensive and definitive picture of hurricane Katrina’s devastating effects on the population, economy and geography of the Gulf Coast region,” said Discovery brand director Raja Balasubramanian.
     
     

    Discovery channel in association with NBC production team aims to bring this incisive programme quickly to aid viewers to understand the science and context for this terrible disaster.

    Katrina presents on-the-scene accounts and exclusive, compelling interviews from federal and state officials, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida survivors.

  • History Channel US looks at Hurricane Katrina History Channel US looks at Hurricane Katrina

    MUMBAI: Today 12 September 2005, The History Channel in the US will present a special that looks at Hurricane Katrina which devastated New Orleans.
     
     

    Katrina: American Catastrophe will explore the history, the science, and the technology behind what happened in the city of New Orleans. It will also examine the uncertain future that lies ahead.

    As Hurricane Katrina lurched across the Gulf of Mexico and toward New Orleans in the sticky heat of late August, residents of the ‘The Big Easy’ began to dread that the disaster they had long feared was at hand. Knowing the city’s unique and dubious layout left it susceptible to major flooding, they fled in droves, but many stayed behind, some by choice, some because they were unable to leave.

    Initially the outlook was hopeful, as the
    city was spared a direct hit by the category 4 storm. But when the levees holding back water from nearby Lake Pontchartrain began to break, the catastrophe that many experts had been predicting could happen — did happen.
    Three days after Katrina hit, much of New Orleans was underwater.
     
     

    The special tracks the days leading up to the storm. It looks at the rich history of the city of New Orleans, which was founded in 1718, and complex geology, and the city’s key role in the U.S. economy. It explores what can be done in the future to better protect this fragile city and the region. Many experts in fields such as engineering, geology, history, economics, meteorology and geography were interviewed for the special to give a complete picture of what happened and why.

    Among the topics covered in the special include Why New Orleans was built in such a vulnerable location, How it was both highly accessible and tremendously vulnerable, how the relative high ground and proximity to the mouth of the Mississippi River offered easy access to Lake Pontchartrain and an outlet to the sea and trading routes

  • The scary future of e-commerce

    From the Model T to modern cars and from dusty trails to super-highways, historians tabulate the remarkable evolution of transportation — the good and the bad combined. However, alongside the great wonders of four wheels, there are the traffic jams, the carjackings, the drive-by shootings and the accidents.
    Similarly, when tabulating e-commerce’s evolution, we start right at the dark ages, then suddenly turn to the greatest moment in history, when it found the Web. This extraordinary, one-of-a-kind innovation has brought us all to a new crossroads again.Shouldn’t we push forward just a little to see how this e-drama unfolds? The following scenario is how it might go.

    Spammed Nation

    There is nothing left but spam, as junk mail reaches its own climax. Mailboxes alone require super computers to sort out the inflow.Hundreds of e-mails per second attack you, and millions of e-mails per day jam your inboxes. The marketers use lists of billions of addresses at a time, selling the weirdest and most unnecessary things. The chunk of population enlarges and shrinks on regular hormonal intake and realignments. Half the population outgrows like Godzilla, while the other half shrinks and slims down to nothing.

    The human mind is easily conquered with a highly repetitive mail onslaught of junky suggestions. Could this possibly be the dawn of the over-dozed zombies, showing off their Stepford wives? Or possibly a dizzy, spammed nation leads the way — as business moves back to snail mail. Postal workers finally calm down. Normalcy sets in. Really?

    Sky-Rise Shelters

    The offices shrink further. A corner suite turns into a cubicle and a cubicle turns into a jack outlet. No need to drive, park and go to the 100th floor, just to open more junk mail. Do it from the kitchen or your porch. Cars are sold and garages turn into headquarters. Save the gas on Hummer look-alikes and let the oil producers drink their own lubricants. Skyscrapers become homeless shelters and flea markets.

    There is no fixed time to work or play. Everything is open and everything is transacted 24 hours a day, all year round. Calendars, clocks and watches are almost deemed useless. Will this ensure more free time to read more junk mail?

    Hurricane Pricing

    The prices are spinning out of control and pushing downwards, ripping competition along the path like a twisted hurricane. Like a wrath of the Temple of Free Trade, a finger gently passes through the city landscape and turns fancy shopping landmarks into trailer parks, so that nature can also pick on its refuge later.

    The dollar-a-day workforce kicks in. For each skilled citizen from a G10 country, there are 10,000 cheap workers teamed-up to compete. Get 1,000 percent cheaper products directly from the remote mountains and jungles, nicely packaged, charged on plastic and shipped shrink-wrapped to your bedroom. No need to get out. E-commerce brings out the largest global supermarket, and countries basically act as the checkout counters, while smart countries become the express lanes. Will they end discount coupons now?

    Name-Economy

    Smart countries are also building armies of high-profile name brands with unique name identities, and going out on global missions in search of becoming the next regional power. Branding is no longer just a tagline for a dumb name with a spinning logo.

    It is a comprehensive, sophisticated global name-identity-delivery-system based on corporate naming laws, ripping hip-hop creative advertising routines. Ferocious demands of return on investment bust traditional advertising. Highly professional corporate communications, along with great PR take over the wild side of branding. Marketing science is re-visited. Names with crystal clear recognition attract the masses, prices drive the sales and cash registers ring in synchronized harmony. Will smaller enterprises with sharper images hit higher notes?

    Small Revolution

    The big business tries hard to hide behind the desks in response to the attacks by the armies of officials as they keep charging in, armed with subpoenas and warrants and pushing the giants to their knees. The little guy from the other side of the tracks now suddenly emerges, along with more and more global marketing savvy and a real contender. There is a major grass-roots revolution of the little businesses run by the little folks.

    The skyscrapers are now entangled by the Lilliputian attacks, and Steven Spielberg finally decides to make a movie called “The Encounters With Artificially Intelligent Businesses and Saving of the Small-Business-Minority-Report.” Go Steve!

    E-Fireworks

    E-commerce is too boring. It’s e-fireworks time now. One hundred-plus brand new features and 100-plus brand new gadgets all delivering and communicating simultaneously with whatever you need in whatever shape, style and form. Move over, “What You See Is What You Get”; it’s now “Whatever You Want, You Got It.” The bells and whistles along with new features will blow the mind. This gizmo, you put in your pocket, it’s not just a gadget, it’s the entire globe in your pocket. Do you get my drift?

    Finally. Are we there yet? Maybe we already arrived just a few hours ago. Anyway, you make sure you have batteries and a radio in case there is a power failure. Candlesticks and matches will also help. It is still a foggy, a long and a winding trail, go for the high road. Who knows?