On October 1st 2015 the “El Faro” cargo ship was lost at sea.  All 33 members of the crew were lost with her.  A few members of the CTH community have family connections to the vessel. Our thoughts and prayers for comfort are with all of the families as they revisit the emotional pain from their loss.

Yesterday, a 10 month long effort to recover the Voyage Data Recorder (VDR), from a depth of over 15,000 feet in the Atlantic, was successfully concluded.

The VDR which includes voice communication, radio transmission and navigation data from the El Faro was secured by the NTSB and arrived in port yesterday for transport to the national office of the NTSB in Washington DC.

The VDR was attached to the mast of the El Faro above the bridge. The distance from the Mast to bulkhead on the sea floor speaks to the severity of the top-side storm impact that was taking place before the vessel was taken by the sea.   (more…)

Based on current Zika virus spread in Puerto Rico the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) now has the following projection:

[…]  “If current trends continue, thousands of pregnant women will get infected with Zika,” said Frieden. “And there could be between dozens and hundreds of children with microcephaly born [there] in the next year.”

The CDC estimates 25 percent of the island’s population could be infected with Zika in its first year of spread there. Puerto Rican women give birth to about 32,000 babies a year. (link)

Transferring the current rate of spread for the virus to the citizenry of greatest impact, based on proximity and travel, the CDC is projecting the strongest U.S. outbreaks in: (more…)

At 100 or more new reported cases a day
(and, obviously, an unquantified number of unreported cases) coupled with the deliberate “removal” of dead victims from the official tally, it is apparent that the Ebola outbreak continues to rage and is far from contained.
As has been mentioned here and elsewhere in the Realism Blogosphere,  Math Just Is.  As the Daily Mail UK reports, scores of orphaned children left to care for themselves after close contact and sustained exposure to a parent or other caregiver who has died from Ebola are  “ticking timebombs”.
(more…)

The U.S. State Dept has finally issued a travel warning about the Bahamas.
[scribd id=245891412 key=key-KWiUt2sk186zqZnyR0eQ mode=scroll]
The short version – DON’T GO. It’s jaw dropping dangerous.
(more…)