Lamont Weekly Report, March 19, 2010

Many Lamonters have had a very tough week, living without power at home for several days, and in some cases sustaining damage to their houses or cars from falling trees. I hope everyone is back to normal now.  On the Campus we owe a great debt of gratitude to our grounds crew for keeping our generators going throughout the outage from
Saturday afternoon to Tuesday night, and for all the cleanup that has been necessary.  Although I was glad to see the repair crews from Orange and Rockland arrive on Campus on Tuesday, I could not help but question the wisdom of their replacing the cables and poles into precisely the same locations. I must assume that the next time the wind blows they will get knocked down in just the same way again. Could we not learn from experience and NOT run power-lines on poles in
densely wooded areas?

Anyhow, the gorgeous weather of the last couple of days has made us forget about the howling winds and pouring rain of last weekend. I was glad to see so many folks brave these discomforting conditions to attend Sam Gerard's memorial service last Saturday - there was a  good turn out and lot of good stories about Sam and his many incredible
exploits.

I was particularly pleased to hear that Jim Hays has been awarded the Milankovitch Medal by the European Geophysical Union.  Many congratulations, Jim - I hope you can turn this into an excuse for a European vacation...

Enjoy this wonderful weather while we have it - we all know it cannot go on like this...

Have a great weekend,

- Mike