There She Blows!

It first showed up as a small news blurb at kcra.com. It simply said an explosion was reported at a wind turbine farm in Northern California. Fire and rescue were reporting to the scene, and little else detail was given. Even the exact location was omitted. Several other local tv station web sites reported it as well, with a few listing the various fire engine companies responding. But it wasn't until ktvu.com in San Francisco reported a major explosion and multiple missing persons that the news wires, the networks, and the social web sites began to take notice and pick up the story as they first nationalized, and then internetionalized it.

Fark.com made it's customary snarky news headline, Wind Farm Crashes, Oh No Not Another Leak! Then came Huffingtonpost.com with its headline, "Major Disaster at Northern California Wind Farm, Several Maintenance Workers Feared Dead. The Associated Press finally ran a story on their wire and ap.org, "Wind Farm Blow-UP - Feared Ecological Damage." The first major network to pick up on it was Fox News, "Wind Farm Disaster, Green Not So Clean? It was finally a San Francisco Chronicle Reporter that twittered on the scene reporting,"Wind Turbine explodes, falls over and begins domino effect knocking over other turbines. Landslide then knocks over more turbines. With release of excess wind, more turbines overheat in excessive spin, causing more and more to fail. Massive wind leak reported, officials mobilizing to contain it."

CNN.com hit with the first finger pointing news story, Fail Safe Safety Features Fail at Wind Farm, Where Were the Regulators? This was followed by Reddit.com and its massively upvoted story, Oh Fuck, Northern Cal About to get Blown Away Next abcnews.com reported, California Wind Farm Disaster, Officials Scramble to Clean Up Excessive Wind as well as cbsnews.com and its story Major Wind Spill - Escaping Wind Could Ravish Ecosystem for Months. Digg.com, late as always, still had a massively popular story of Who Farted? Northern Cal Wind Farm Crash Lets Loose a Big One.

Now the bloggers joined in. And a quick peek at news.google.com and its associated blog entries listed a variety of opinions, Wind Farm Disaster Worst of Century; Wind Leak Could Ravage Northern California Pot Farms; Drill For Oil 'Cause Wind Blows! Scientists at noaa.gov began to post simulated mappings of the escaping wind spreading over Northern California, and projected paths into Nevada and further east. Slashdot.org had an article on, "Migratory bird paths could be severely altered by new wind patterns. Swallows of Capistrano at great risk of being late.

Finally whitehouse.gov released a statement from the President stating, "The government is doing everything it can to help local and state officials, as well as the owners of the wind farm, to contain the massive leak of wind escaping into Northern and Central California. The California National Guard is being recalled from Iraq and the Coast Guard has joined in Search and Rescue missions for lost medicinal pot growers. The government asks any other wind power industry partners to step forward with any ideas of how to help contain and stop the wind leaks. This wind leak could cause havoc all across the Cascades and Sierra Nevada mountains, even south should the wind patterns shift. Not to be outdone, Governor Schwarzennegar posted on ca.gov that he would convene a special session of the California legislature to talk about this issue.

Soon, videos began appearing on youtube.com that quickly went viral, everything with suggestions of giant pinwheels made with recycled cardboard to slow the wind, to Chinatown residents mobilizing with giant dragon kites to help catch the wind. Suggestions of burning the wind (wind provides oxygen) were also made, but discounted due to the large amounts of flammable material such as diesel oil that would be necessary.

Sadly as of this posting, there is no end in sight to the giant amounts of wind gushing from the coast onto the mountains and beyond to the prairies, threatening to blow away the way of life for millions of Americans.


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Inspired by:

"‘Daunting’ oil spill will wind up in court, AG says; BP pledges to pick up tab"