What were the years of production for SDA 1.2's

trubluluc

Just wondering


-Luc

BlueMDPicker

According to Dr. Smith, 1987-88.

BTW - Has anyone heard from Raife since Rita?

trubluluc

Thanks Bro Mike!

-Luc

SCompRacer

BlueMDPicker wrote:

According to Dr. Smith, 1987-88.

BTW - Has anyone heard from Raife since Rita?

I PM'd him with a circuit question about a week ago and asked how he was doing. He said he's OK, just busy.

BlueMDPicker

SCompRacer wrote:

He said he's OK, just busy.

Thanks! Great news.

DarqueKnight

Mike,

I'm fine. Thanks for asking. I've been involved in a lot of cleanup work at my place and at the homes of friends and family. Me and my chain saw have been spending a lot of time together.

I had no damage to my house, but I needed to have four trees (two of which were over 40 feet tall) cut down and removed from my back yard. Man, I'm going to miss that shade. Katrina didn't blow them over, but they were leaning and it was just a matter of time till they fell. One was leaning towards my house.

Understandably, professional tree removal service is hard to come by these days. I was just able to have the trees cut down and removed last week. We still have piles of debris and fallen (and leaning) trees to remove all over the city. The storm cleanup is all the more difficult because the sanitation company has to deal with the trash generated by the 250,000 "guests" from New Orleans in addition to the "normal" refuse generated by the regular population of 250,000 residents and 50,000 college students. Our trash collection has gone from twice weekly to once every ten days to two weeks.

If anyone is considering moving to or visiting Baton Rouge, well, you'd better not be. We don't have any apartments for rent. There are no hotel rooms. Every house for sale has multiple bidders.

The grocery stores stay sold out of snacks so bring your own; and that's only if you are just passing through. There's no lunch meat, no spam, no potato chips, no crackers.

We do have plenty of gas, and at lower than national average prices, which contributes to our brand new New Orleans style traffic jams.

This used to be such a quiet, laid back kind of town. Of course, it could be much worse. I could be one of the former residents of that other town further down the river. :mad:

BlueMDPicker

Raife,

I hope things return to something that passes for normal very soon.

PM me with a shipping address and I'll get a FEMA (Friends Emergency Munchie Allocation) package headed South!

Mike

SDA SRS 1.2

Glad you're OK, Raife! Hang in there!

Robbie

DarqueKnight

BlueMDPicker wrote:

Raife,

I hope things return to something that passes for normal very soon.

PM me with a shipping address and I'll get a FEMA (Friends Emergency Munchie Allocation) package headed South!

Mike

Thanks! PM sent. By the way, things will not be returning to normal anytime soon. It seems that every government agency involved in relief/reconstruction efforts, as well 50% of New Orleans displaced population wants to set up housekeeping in Baton Rouge.

Here's a heartwarming story to get your day started :

Garbage, complaints piling up as collections falter

By SCOTT DYER
Advocate staff writer

Thursday, October 6, 2005

Some East Baton Rouge Parish residents haven't had their garbage picked up for two weeks, and the telephones are ringing off the hook at City Hall.

Other residents had their garbage picked up only once last week, even though the city-parish's contract with Allied Waste calls for twice-a-week pickup.

An Allied Waste official on Wednesday said garbage collection has been complicated by a lack of temporary laborers, heavy traffic and an increased volume of garbage caused by an influx of an estimated 250,000 people in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. But city-parish officials said they are prepared to take action against the company if the situation doesn't improve.

Andy King, general manager of Allied Waste's East Baton Rouge operations, told members of the Metro Council Wednesday about his plight and that of his company.

"I myself only had my garbage picked up last week, and when I went home, my wife told me about it," King said during special council meeting to discuss garbage service.

Metro Councilman Ulysses "Bones" Addison said he's been inundated with complaints from his constituents in north Baton Rouge about the lack of garbage service.

"I understand your dilemma, but this government shouldn't pay for something that it didn't receive," Addison said.

East Baton Rouge households pay $8.40 per month for garbage service, or about half of what it really costs for the service. The difference is subsidized by the city-parish's general fund and property taxes.

Addison asked the mayor-president's office to research how many homes have missed garbage pickup so that the city-parish can pursue possible fines.

In a memo to the council, Bob Abbott of the Parish Attorney's Office noted that Allied Waste's contract allows fines of up to $5,000 for each missed area or uncompleted route.

Walter Monsour, chief administrative officer for Mayor-President Kip Holden, said the city-parish is prepared to take action against Allied Waste if the company doesn't correct the garbage pickup problems as promised.

Allied Waste crews are still picking up the garbage that was put out last week, King said, noting that the work will get done eventually.

King said he expects his crews plan to work Sunday and plans to be back on the regular garbage pickup schedule by next week.

"By that, I mean that we expect to have Monday's garbage off the ground by Tuesday, Tuesday's garbage off the ground by Wednesday and so on," King said.

In the two months prior to Hurricane Katrina, King said, Allied Waste had experienced a 40-percent decrease in complaints.

But the increase in the population following Katrina -- estimated by city-parish officials at 250,000 people -- has complicated garbage collection efforts in recent weeks.

"I feel no excuse is good enough for what's been going on in the past few weeks," King told the council.

Allied Waste really started to fall behind when Hurricane Rita hit last month, King said.

"Rita hit on a Saturday and interrupted our pickup that day, and we lost power at our facility until that Tuesday," King said.

But the biggest problem, King said, was the lack of temporary laborers to help pick up garbage.

"On the Monday after Rita, we were short 30 temporary laborers," King said, noting that most were recruited away from Allied Waste by the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Monsour told the council that FEMA and the Red Cross were paying its worker $20 per day more than Allied Waste, but noted that Allied Waste has adjusted its pay scale in recent days.

On a related issue, King said Allied Waste and its subcontractors are making headway in picking up limbs and storm debris from both recent hurricanes.

As of Wednesday, King said a total of 388,000 cubic yards of storm debris had been picked up.

"That's basically a year's worth of trash in one month," King said.

King estimated that another 150,000 to 200,000 cubic yards is still awaiting collection and that it will be picked up within 30 days.

King agreed to attend next week's council meeting to provide an update on trash and garbage pickup. In the meantime, he said, Allied Waste is adding 10 additional phone lines to help field complaints.

Monsour said the city-parish has already spent $6 million on trash pickup, and is seeking reimbursement from FEMA. And before the job is completed, Monsour said the city-parish may spend another $6 million on debris pickup.