[math-fun] 177 million tons of ice???
A front-page Sat., Sept. 17 story on the NY Times website, found at http://snipurl.com/hqxi, claims that FEMA has delivered 177 million tons of ice to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Is 177 million tons a credible amount? Seems very unlikely to me, but I'd like to know what others think. --Dan
At 12:33 AM 9/17/2005, dasimov@earthlink.net, math-fun wrote:
A front-page Sat., Sept. 17 story on the NY Times website, found at http://snipurl.com/hqxi, claims that FEMA has delivered 177 million tons of ice to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
Is 177 million tons a credible amount?
Seems very unlikely to me, but I'd like to know what others think.
Impossible, as stated. The limit a semi can carry is on the order of 30,000-50,000 pounds. Over 7 million truckloads?
Jud McCranie wrote:
At 12:33 AM 9/17/2005, dasimov@earthlink.net, math-fun wrote:
A front-page Sat., Sept. 17 story on the NY Times website, found at http://snipurl.com/hqxi, claims that FEMA has delivered 177 million tons of ice to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
Is 177 million tons a credible amount?
Seems very unlikely to me, but I'd like to know what others think.
Impossible, as stated. The limit a semi can carry is on the order of 30,000-50,000 pounds. Over 7 million truckloads?
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You can do better with trains and boats, but that only gets the ice to the station/port. The real problem is, who could use it? There are only about 10 million people in the area... and 17 tons is a LOT of ice. On the other hand, they probably do have bills for that much ice... :-(
Nope, not believable. 1 cubic meter of water = one metric ton. Dimensions of a truck -- about 3 meters x 4meters x 10 meters Round up to 177 cubic meters per truck. Or a million trucks loaded with ice. I'm making lots of gross estimates off the top of my head, above, but I think that's allowed. Ed Pegg Jr --- <dasimov@earthlink.net> wrote:
A front-page Sat., Sept. 17 story on the NY Times website, found at http://snipurl.com/hqxi, claims that FEMA has delivered 177 million tons of ice to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
Is 177 million tons a credible amount?
Seems very unlikely to me, but I'd like to know what others think.
--Dan _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
The Times has printed a correction: A front-page article on Saturday about mistakes by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina referred incorrectly to the area being overseen by the agency's federal coordinating officer, William Lokey. It also misstated the amount of ice that had been delivered to the region by Friday. Mr. Lokey oversees Louisiana, not the three-state region. Relief workers delivered 177.6 million pounds, not tons. -- Victor S. Miller | " ... Meanwhile, those of us who can compute can hardly victor@idaccr.org | be expected to keep writing papers saying 'I can do the CCR, Princeton, NJ | following useless calculation in 2 seconds', and indeed 08540 USA | what editor would publish them?" -- Oliver Atkin
participants (5)
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dasimov＠earthlink.net -
ed pegg -
Hugh Everett -
Jud McCranie -
victor＠idaccr.org