oh, worm?

Venezuela was hit by two earthquakes yesterday, a 7.2 and a 7.5. Many parts of the country have been reduced to rubble, and areas of Caracas have been flattened. Their infrastructure has already been under immense strain. Here's how you can help:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/emergency-relief-for-venezuela-earthquake-victims

Donate here.

It is a little difficult for me to format this information, as I am getting it through WhatsApp messages and Instagram reels, but I will be using this post to add collection centres outside of Venezuela. I will not be using this platform to spread information for those who are inside Venezuela as I know there are better platforms for that.

Most of the information I share will be in spanish and I also will not be doing any translation work. The addresses are clear and the items needed are universal in every catastrophe of this magnitude.

Collection centres in Puerto Rico:

Collection centres in Argentina:

Collection centres in Chile:

Collection centres in Bogotá:

Collection centres in Miami:

Also the further you move toward the poles the more pronounced the difference between the length of day and night is. Worst part of a far-north (or south) heatwave is it doesn’t get dark long enough for meaningful cooling.

Infrastructure and citified heat islands also very much play a factor. And here the angle you’re at on earth also makes it worse. The sun being lower on the horizon can double the amount of solar energy affecting your house. The sun beating through your windows for 16+ hours a day when you have a house built for cold and no AC adds to the misery.

But what I’m talking about here is how hot you feel in your body when experiencing solar radiation from a lower angle. On the upside the sun’s rays have to pass through more atmosphere, weakening the UV strength, hence why populations that migrated north eons ago lost melanin (you still need SPF though). And in general the warming effect on the atmosphere is lessened. The warming effect on your body is magnified. To the tune of 10-20 degrees (yes Fahrenheit) above ambient. Winter gear prioritizes insulating your torso because that’s where all your vital organs are. It follows that the sun beating on your chest and back warms you up fast and with little relief except to get in the shade.

My eye doctor also told me living in Alaska made you more likely to get cataracts younger because the low-angle sun gets directly in your eyes in the summer (unless you’re big on sunglasses) and the snow and ice in winter reflect a lot of UV back up, doubling your exposure. Though the prevalence of cataracts in Alaska and other far-north locales is contributed to by other factors, notably poverty and the resulting lack of medical care. And is still not as likely as in people who live in equatorial climes or high altitudes and get the super-strength UV exposure all year round.

I think what a lot of people underestimate is just how much road there is in your city. And just how many directions the crew gets pulled.

For our city of around 50k people there are 8 of us.

Also, crack sealing is a wholly temporary measure, meant to slow the break-up of the roads, it’s not a permanent fix.

Roads tend to get closed for months on end because we have to tear the whole thing up, then, depending on the class of road, we either have to hammer-drill into concrete to lay rebar and the pour concrete, or we can get straight to paving. If it’s a road requiring concrete we’re required to wait at least 24 hours for it to set.

So after 2 days we’re finally able to pave. But the city allocates one (two if we’re lucky) 5 ton truck to transport material.

A relatively short paving job requires at a minimum of 60 tons. So that’s 12 trips to the asphalt factory and back. Each ton is around $80.

TL;DR

They are actually looking at someone who is terrified out of his mind because the man he loves is unconscious and being strapped to a spinal board. And soon he’ll have to play the rest of this game even though Shane was taken away by ambulance. Because nobody knows Shane means anything to him.