f13.net

I know some of you are shivering in cold and heat will sound good, but consider this: grapes are boiling (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25014881-5006785,00.html) and potatoes are baking in the ground (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/04/2481895.htm), ruining farmers' crops.

This weekend, parts of my state (New South Wales, Australia) are forecast to be the hottest places on Earth (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25015424-1242,00.html), at over 47 ºC or 116.6 ºF.

More than 30 people are thought to have died in South Australia due to the heat in the last few weeks, when they had days of similar temperatures. Hospitals are gearing up (http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/heat-is-on-mercury-on-the-up-and-up/2009/02/05/1233423405357.html) for this weekend.

Wild animals (http://bicycles.net.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12327) are crawling up to humans seeking water (http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,22613,5037290-5014156,00.html).

BTW my only aircon is in my car (and at work, but I don't work weekends). When it gets really really hot my PC's air cooling ain't enough so I keep it switched off.

These are the longest heatwaves ever recorded in some of the regions affected, and the highest temperatures recorded. Climate change?

It was -20C here this morning.

Will gladly trade with you.

I'm just glad to know that some place in this  globe is warmer than here, even if only by 2 to 6ºC  :awesome_for_real:

The grapes aren't boiling, though.

If it's really hot where Tale is and really cold where Oban is, it must average out to just about normal.  I don't see what the fuss is about.

It's been an interesting summer.  We had the heating on in November/December.

Last week in Melbourne we had three days where the temperature was 40C+.  Luckily I was travelling interstate for one day of that.  When I arrived back in town it was still 40C (104F) at 9pm at night and the overnight low was 35C (95F).  

We don't have a garage so the car is parked in the sun.  You physically cannot get in the car if it's been parked outside for more than about 30mins.  We only have have aircon in the bedroom so the family was camped out there each night to try and get some sleep.

The train system wasn't designed for this protracted heat and each day there were progressively more service cancellations.  On the Friday the train network cancelled over 250 services including closing four whole lines.

Those poor bastards in South Australia and country Victoria have had whole weeks at 40C+.

At least next week it's going to be in the 20C's.

Cuteoverload.com also had redonkulous pictures of a koala climbing up on someone's porch for water. (http://mfrost.typepad.com/cute_overload/2009/02/koala-relief.html)

Oh, these ones are near the bottom of the site Tale posted.

I will now divert your question to the segment of the population that has been laughingly saying, "It's -20c here in the US, global warming is bullshit or we'd be having record highs not lows like this!!! Screw you Al Gore! Har Har."

Complex systems and the interaction of extreme high and low pressure systems won't enter the conversation.

That Koala is adorable and makes me sad to hear that they're getting desperate enough to come that close for water.

Weather over the past 2 weeks has been very weird, even for Canada. The next two weeks will see us go up to +8 and back down to -6, which will probably feel like -15 or lower with the windchill.

Just want to reiterate it's not just hot. In many areas these are:
a) The hottest temperatures ever recorded.
b) The longest sustained heatwave ever (40+ deg C for two weeks in some places).

In Melbourne the morgue is overflowing and they are storing bodies in a cargo container, because people are dying at three times the normal rate (http://www.theage.com.au/national/heatwave-puts-morgue-under-pressure-20090206-7zo9.html).

Check out what Melbourne residents are being told for tomorrow (http://www.theage.com.au/national/worst-day-in-history-brumby-warns-of-fire-danger-20090206-7zf1.html):
"If you don't need to go out, don't go out, it's a seriously bad day.

"If you don't need to travel, don't travel.

"Don't go on the roads. If you don't need to use the public transport system, don't use it.

"If you can stay at home, stay at home."

This evening in Sydney there was a strong wind blowing from inland (where tomorrow's weather is coming from) and my car thermometer measured it at 35 C. After sunset. The air is now full of smoke because it has sparked a fire somewhere (http://bushfire.nsw.gov.au/dsp_more_info_latest.cfm?CON_ID=6525). Tomorrow it's going to be anywhere up to 44 C.

New research about Indian Ocean Dipole (http://fw.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/major-change-in-climate-thinking/1424667.aspx?storypage=0), not something I know that much about to be honest, I just thought it was interesting if true.

Maybe Australians need to adopt the habits of the Middle East.

Spend the summers in London and the South of France.

Construct homes with few windows and thick walls. 

Import third world servants to do the work.

Sleep during the day.

Eat mostly at night.

Religious wars.

Avoid alcohol.

You had me up to this point.  :grin:

Australia's big problem is fresh water. IF these kind of trends continue and IF some of the fresh water projections hold true, some cities may actually run out of fresh water in the next few years. I know it is used some places, but adding recycled water to the fresh water supply is pretty much the only way forward for some cities.

I forgot to add desalinization plants to my list.

This is why everyone should keep a package of emergency herbs in their cupboard!

Like emergency nutmeg?

Just in thyme.

Sage advice.

Rosemary agrees.

Ok, mine sucked. Sorry.

My experience in the San Fransico Bay leaves me with much the same feeling.

Sucking?

Good job breaking the stream, Oban.  :oh_i_see:

Anythyme.

Koalas are begging water from humans everywhere. Cute photo gallery: http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5037290-5014156,00.html

Normally you never see koalas because they stay high up in trees, eating the tips of leaves. They usually get their moisture from those.

Well, we're not as hot as forecast for Sydney today.

But Melbourne is getting absolutely FUCKED: read this (http://www.theage.com.au/national/city-swelters-records-tumble-in-heat-20090207-80ai.html).

It's actually not as bad down here as it was at the end of last week. The height may be a little more, and we've had a non-stop run of days in the 30's for a week, but a single day in the high 40s isn't as bad as a run of days in the low-mid 40s...
 :ye_gods:
Still sucks though. Roll on 6pm and the cool change.

It's 44º right now in Estacada... (F)

Eight firefronts now burning in Victoria (Melbourne's state). If anyone's interested, you can listen to Melbourne local radio here: http://abc.net.au/melbourne/onair/774stream.asx

115º F here today.

25 dead in fires last night - bodies still being found, police estimate 40+ dead (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/02/07/2485270.htm).

Edit - video of entire town destroyed by fire: http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/02/08/2485362.htm

While I feel sorry for those people who live in country towns that get the shit kicked out of them each year by bushfires, I really don't have any pity for those who choose to move there or move into a nice house inside a fucking state forest. I've been of this opinion since I was a kid, watching shit like Ash Wednesday on the news wondering "why do they choose tolive there?"

Now I know some people don't have a choice, (ie born there, all their social networks are there, own the pub, a farm, etc) but for those who do, I have no empathy or pity. There are huge bushfires all over the state every fucking year. Grow a fucking brain.

**my brother (not the cool one who introduced me to f13) lives in a state forest. I don't know what the fuck is wrong with him, either.

I have the same problem with people who choose to build/move onto a floodplain or unstable ground.

It's nice there when you're not burning/drowning.

Yes indeed. It's a nice place to visit. But you're fucking stupid if you choose to love there.

I'd think it'd be a rather nice place for loving, too.

Provided you can avoid all the things that can kill you and find somewhere soft, it is. Oh, and it isn't summer.

66 74 76 dead in fires and rising, 700 homes destroyed and rising

Best coverage:
http://www.abc.net.au/news
http://www.theage.com.au

The reason I started this thread was not just because it was hot, but because it was hotter than it has ever been, and something like this was going to come of it.

I always have to look up exchange rates, but 84 dead Australians is the equivalent of about 1260 Americans. 

That is a lot of people.

Great, I feel really guilty for laughing at that.

135 and climbing, truly horrifying.

http://www.theage.com.au/interactive/2009/national/darkestday/video14.html

Old fire test video below, real scary shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99iYMfWWGS0&feature=channel_page

The media are really loving this - tears, destruction, local pseudo-celebrity deaths. If someone has just lost everything, don't stick a camera in their face.

Yeah, I know - the media are vultures, news at 11.

Fire sale on round trip tickets to Australia. (http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/InternationalAirfare/tabid/171/AirportId/497/Default.aspx)

Video of just after fire went through:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/02/10/vo.aussie.eye.of.storm.ninenetwork

You're a bit of a dick, and ignorant to boot.

It's been a shitty few days in Victoria.  :cry2:

Not really. I have common sense. I said it's one thing if you're born there, and want to live in the place where you've lived all your life, etcetera.

It's another thing if you choose to move to a natural disaster zone. Guess what? The same shit will happen next year, though hopefully with no or at least far fewer deaths. But it's (a few deaths, loss of many homes) happened every year of my life and will continue to happen long after I have died.



To Wit:

My reaction to the woman who's corpse they discovered in her car, loaded up with her crockery is not "die stupid bitch". It's "what the fuck is wrong with you?".

That's how I feel about people who move to bushfire zones. It might be cheap, it might be beautiful. You might spend every summer the rest of your life trying not to die to bushfires.

Koala rescue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XSPx7S4jr4

You don't actually know anything about what's happened, do you?

Actually, alcohol increases the capacity of your body to radiate heat by thinning your blood.

Here's my question....every year there are brush fires in this general area yes?
Every year it seem there are brush fires in California.

So why is it no one generally dies in California and fewer towns are ravaged?

Dont the Aussies have local professional or volunteer fire fighters? Dont they have local emergency management people to go around and tell people to get the fuck out of Dodge?
Couldnt they have taken to the TV and radio air waves warning people?

Yes, I understand this was the firestorm of the century or some such shit. But what happened or didnt happen to cause such a loss of life? Did people simply not heed the warnings and waited til it was to late to leave?

Tale? Any info?

There are deaths in california  and for similar reasons if a big windstorm hits you could be one minute a long way from the fire and the next minute it could be all around you. Perhaps they waited a bit to long to evacuate but with the winds reported fire can move very very quickly and jump around as flying embers catch other things on fire and you can wind up trapped and dead very fast.  With it as dry as it is down there the whole place around those towns is a huge tinderbox aching to go up in flames in seconds.

Understood. Yet nothing you said is new or ground breaking. It shouldnt have been to the people running the local fire crews or emergency management crisis teams either. So once again what happened or didnt happened that led to such a loss of life?

I do, but I don't answer to you. Nor am I interested in writing an essay for your benefit. Towns like Kinglake and Marysville aren't the only places that have burned. Additionally, I was talking in general terms, not only about people moving to perpetually-bushfire-threatened townships, but particularly about people who choose to move to state forests, which, as always, have been affected. As I've said before, don't fucking move to a fucking bushfire zone.



A couple of reasons are an unusually hot and dry stretch of time culminating on the hottest day on record. Might have been the hottest stretch of time on record as well, and if not it was only short by one day. Arsonists in some areas. Typical thinking is that you're safer in your home than in a car on the road if you leave late, which obviously worked out badly when the fires got to people's homes.

Firstly, you have to stop calling them brush fires. That's like pronouncing Aussie with an "s" sound instead of a "z" (and we call that a zed, not a zee) :-)

Australia doesn't have brush fires, we have bushfires. This comes from our term for native-forested areas: "bush". Bush or "the bush" is also used to mean anywhere outside the cities, i.e. "I live in the bush" means I live inland, outside a town, "go bush" means to get out into the remote areas. Because until you get to the desert in the middle of the country - unless someone has cleared it for farming or building - the entire nation consists of bush (native forest). Note: this is not the same as the South African "bush" and "bushman" terms, which mean a different thing. In Australia, a bushman means someone who knows about bush survival, not a Kalahari tribesman.

I'd estimate about 99.99999% of the bush consists of eucalyptus trees, with low undergrowth.


The basic problem is the nature of eucalyptus trees. Catching fire a few times in their existence, is part of their life cycle - they easily survive it, easily regenerate and it helps them seed.

They emit a somewhat flammable vapour that hangs around in the canopy of the tree. So when a fire comes along on a hot day with strong gusts of wind, fire moves with incredible speed across the treetops. It gets so big and hot that there is massive radiant heat, and burning embers driven by the wind create "spot fires" way ahead of the main firefront.

The fire that killed all these people suddenly changed direction due to the wind and travelled many kilometres in an unexpected direction. There is a massive volunteer fire brigade in addition to paid firefighters, and the warnings are on the airwaves. But you can't fight a fire on a day like that. You can just issue a general warning, to get the fuck out in the morning, or stay with your well-prepared home. Because fleeing in your car during the fire is the worst thing you can do. Many of the dead appear to have stayed with their homes, discovered their preparation was inadequate for this intensity of fire, tried to flee in their cars too late, and died on the roads.

Of course, the rest of the time it's a picturesque, beautiful environment. And like the USA, Australian culture is a mix of overseas influences, particularly European, and living a nice peaceful life out in the forest is desirable to many people. In these areas, you get a mix of old hands who know how to survive in the bush, and city folk who have moved to the bush, who don't really know enough.

Before European settlement, the Aborigines lived in the bush but tended to set it alight in the cooler months, to burn it off. That way, if it caught fire in summer it didn't have as much fuel and they didn't die. European settlers considered this arson, rounded up or shot the Aborigines, and paid with their lives when fires came along. So a modern culture of controlled burn-offs developed, and fire authorities are supposed to do it, but people hate living in smoky air and worry about it getting out of control, so burn-offs require a permit system, it all gets too complex and not enough burn-offs are done anymore.

That will probably change after this fire, until people get slack again. As with most things, the Aboriginal traditional knowledge passed down by word-of-mouth is there for a reason, but non-Aboriginal folks tend to dismiss it until something bad happens. In some areas where Aboriginal people still live, they are given the task of doing the controlled burns, because it just fucking works better when they do it.

Also, another stupid white folks thing has happened: people planted Aussie eucalyptus trees all over California.

Are all koalas that docile?  I know they're coming out of their trees because of heat and fire, but they're showing a lot ofl "hey dude, thanks for the water, see you next week mate" levels of casual.

Gale-force winds.

No, it's freaky. The firefighter in the video I linked above makes a comment along the lines of "he'll probably get to the end of the bottle and scratch the fuck out of my hand".

Ah.  I couldn't make out all of what he was saying with the audio quality.

Found it, he says: "you watch, he'll get hydrated and he'll rip the absolute <beep> out of me"

spoke with a buddy lasts night:  his parents lost everything, but managed to live by taking refuge in a culvert that drained into a lake (so basically they were partially submerged in water and sheltered by the culvert.  Neighbors.. not good, several people he grew up with are dead.  All his parent have now are literally the clothes on their back.

Don't know enough about Australia to comment about fires there.   However, living in California, and having spent several seasons when i was young and spry working for the Forest Service as a Wildlands firefighter....  People build homes in stupid places.  However, when people are actually dying it is generally considered to be in poor taste to mock them for it.

With that said:  between Sacramento and south lake Tahoe on highway 50 near the town of kyburz, there is a house that i shit you not from ~1991 to present:

1) Was burned down in a forest fire (I watched this house burn during the Cleveland fire)
2) They rebuilt
3) The house was taken out by a landslide.   
4) They rebuilt
5) The house was taken out by another landslide before they had even moved back in.
6) They rebuilt
7) The house was burned down by another wildfire...

Perhaps  Mother Nature is trying to tell you something?

So you're making a general point that doesn't have a whole lot to do with the topic at hand, though not explaining it as such and just casually denigrating the thousands of people who have lost homes, and hundreds who have lots lives. Got it.


45+ degrees for a number of days, windy as fuck, arsonists, etc. It's not like people here are stupid, there are always bushfires every summer in Victoria and New South Wales. But when things get to a certain point there is nothing that can be done (Canberra burned a few years back, Sydney before that).

I understand that you might go "huh, how does it happen?" but there are heaps of things that happen in the natural world that human beings ultimately can't control. The bushfire experts here are just as good as anywhere else in the world (Australia often sends assistance to the US for things like the Cali fires).

Granted, the loss of life could have been lower if everyone was forced to evacuate their homes a day in advance (this would include whole towns, not just people on farms and the like) and the like, but this hasn't been required for the past 20 years, maybe people got complacent and thought they knew better, maybe this was just one of those things you could do fuck all about. But it's a bit harsh to sit on a couch and denigrate these people who have lost a lot, and the authorities who are far more expert when it comes to dealing with these things than we are, and say "you fucking idiots".

To be fair, every tornado season I wonder why people would live in the US' tornado belt.

My point of view is that this is a tragedy, but if you are going to live in the bush it is good possibility of it happening. Especially when you let big trees grow near your house and don't clean out the gutters.

Historically people have sheltered from fires in their homes (if properly prepared) and been safe. This time everything was too hot, water ran out and that strategy wasn't a good one any more.

I actually worked fire crew the year that Yellowstone burned (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowstone_fires_of_1988) up (well, about 30% of it, anyway).  If fires get big enough, they start making their own weather, creating a big high pressure zone where winds are unpredictable but generally very fast along the fringes.  You cross an invisible line and suddenly what was just a big typical forest fire is something completely different.

It actually is possible to protect a remote home surrounded by woods in a forest fire/brush fire in a fairly simple way.  But it takes advance planning, you need a reservoir of water (a few dozen acre-feet), a good irrigation pump and one of the giant sprinklers that can water an entire baseball field (picture a rainbird scaled up to the size of a small cannon)  When the fire is getting close, you just soak everything within 50 yards of your cabin (including the walls and roof of it) and keep doing it until the fire has burned past you.  Then you pay a big-ass fine for unauthorized irrigation, and call it good.

--Dave

This one wasn't so much the fires creating their own weather (which I'm sure they did).

The Australian climate is tropical in the north, dry desert in the middle, and Mediterranean on the lower east and west coasts. Weather travels roughly west-to-east across the continent, which is roughly the size of the USA minus Alaska.

A particularly evil high pressure system or two came in from the Indian Ocean (west), heating up massively as it crossed thousands of kilometres of desert, baking Adelaide with dry heat for days, then baking Melbourne, and the northern tip of it even baked Sydney to the north. This drove a similarly evil low pressure system to the north, which flooded almost the entire northern state of Queensland during the bushfires to the south.

I was in Adelaide (middle south of the continent) at the time this air was heating up, and I felt the strength of the sun there - it felt like we had moved closer to the sun. It was too strong to stand in, and that was in the city. After I left, hot air started to blow across the continent from west of there. Later, I felt it arrive in Sydney (see my posts near the start of this thread). A relentless hot wind - dry desert air, unlike Sydney's normal humid summer weather - was making it feel like Adelaide.

We had 40 degrees C from that, but we were on the northern edge of it. Melbourne and the bushfire areas were bang in the middle of that hot wind. They had 47 degrees C that day. Someone I know who lives near the fire zone measured the temperature standing in the sun, and it was 51 degrees C. That was after two weeks of temperatures mostly in the 40s, and no rain. So the bush was incredibly dry and ready to burn.

In the afternoon, at the point where the air was hottest and the wind was strongest, these bushfires began killing people. Then at about 6pm, a blast of cooler air came in from the south, changing the wind direction and driving the fires in a different direction, killing more.

Is this accurate, six metres? (http://www.smh.com.au/national/fined-for-illegal-clearing-family-now-feel-vindicated-20090212-85bd.html?page=-1)

I don't know, but it looks like that guy cleared about 600 metres! I guess that's one way to survive a bushfire, bulldoze so fucking far that you're no longer a resident of the bush.

100 meters.

As Trippy said 100 metres, even then looks like it was a close thing.  Forcing a six metre limit, seems a bit odd, if true.

Tale thanks for the info.


From that link Arthur posted....

That is fucking awesome. Its even more awesome that your paper printed it uncensored!


That article clears up some of why there was such a loss of life and property.
A) Fucking 18' clear cutting around a house is ALL that is legally allowed?
B) Must have been some INTENSE heat. When he describes loosing vehicles and such due to melting.

Eucalyptus trees regrow best if there is a short, intense fire, which is why they actively fuel it with the oil in their leaves. So it was hot, lots of fuel and then a good wind. Things went up fast.

Yeah I was deliberately exaggerating. I don't know what the law there is, because I live in another state with different laws. But if there's a 6 metre rule, it would be intended for the city. Generally we have rules about not chopping down trees in the city. If somebody has extended it to the bush, they're stupid.

I'm with Azazel on this one.

My favorite are the people that talk about how great their -insert natural disaster prone- state is. Oh whoops, sorry about that hurricane that hit!

Louisiana...sure, you aren't an idiot for building a home UNDER SEA LEVEL.

Floods in Texas

California - Fires and Quakes

Tornado belt - Tornadoes :)


And the absolute stupid of stupid, are the ones that rebuild right where shit like that has happened. You are an idiot. You deserve to have your stupid house go up in flames/flood/tornado/hurricanes again.


I live in Michigan. It gets cold and shit here. But we don't really have natural disasters and the cold wipes out almost all the nasty shit. I have a friend living in FLA that rags on me, I can't wait for hurricane season :)

In all fairness, Texas is so large that it doesn't flood everywhere.  Mostly in the lower elevations of East Texas like Dallas and Houston.  W. Texas almost never floods, and as long as you are south of certain areas, tornado season doesn't really apply to you either.  But then you get to places like Pecos and El Paso, where no one really wants to live anyways as it's just dry dirt 95% of the year.

The guy that clears 100 meters around his house and works to save it with his two children, all experienced CFA members, manages to save the place despite other losses.

That someone who has such experience and preperation could have lost the house, that it's still at "moderate" risk, should give an indication of what people were/are up against.

Also, the Victorian Premier, John Brumby, surprises me with the depths of "you stupid fuckwit" he can reach.

Examples?

I'm still getting over Channel 10 actually using "a day burned in our hearts" as a promo to their Late News. Subtle guys, real subtle.

Cockatoos are trying to out-cute the koalas.

Sulphur-crested cockatoo before the bushfire:

(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/SulphurCrestedCockatoo.jpg)
(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/41498831.Cockywithcrestweb.jpg)

Sulphur-crested cockatoo after the bushfire:

(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/0,,6485316,00.jpg)
(http://users.on.net/~svandore/pics/0,,6485315,00.jpg)

Something like that was what made me understand it too - I saw a TV interview with a basic, working-class kind of guy who said something like "we ran when I saw what happened to my truck - I was looking out the window and saw my truck didn't burn, it melted, so I grabbed the kids and we ran for the oval (a sports field), and the house burned down behind us".

Houston has been designed to drain water exceptionally well.  We have one of the best drainage systems in the world.

Recent developments have complicated that because the builders have found it easier to purposefully skirt the few building restrictions we have, go "whoops" afterwards, and take the fine because they're not going to be forced to tear down a building.  What they've done is mess with ground water retention and it messes up all the planning.

Allison was a once in 500 year storm.  Nowhere can handle 39" of rain being dumped on it in a twelve hour period on top of a storm system passing over the area three times (due to a front pushing it back) and it stalling for a hefty period.  Ike was just so damn large on top of it's high winds that it was bound to do lots of damage to infrastructure.  Just massive in size.  Water damage was mostly the surge along the coast, again a problem simply due to Ike's size.

Westboro Baptist Church verdict: http://www.godhatesfags.com/written/fliers/20090216_australia-national-memorial-service.pdf

American media not falling for Phelps' trolling anymore, so he's going after Australia's?

Wonder if this will work:
(http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/conversions%5Cp2h_4395446/tmpA2AD.tmp001.png)
How the hell is he going to get his freakshow to Melbourne by Sunday?  Or is he opening it up for an Australian franchise (you do have fundies down there, don't you)?

--Dave

Someone just needs to beat his ass. The whole idea of "Oh, he just wins if you do that" is bullshit. There is no better incentive to behave correctly than a simple beatdown.

If the American online media is not using this stuff in the current internet environment, the American media fails. I don't think "falling for" is what happens anymore.

The Australian media will use this to the max, but not because they fall for it. I spent the last five years in an Australian job with the title News Editor, so please believe me.

I would have put this at the top of the front page because it will outrage readers amid the national mood of sympathy for fire victims and they will click on it and discuss it in the comments with each other, generating millions of clicks which will earn my media employer vast amounts of money, and ensure I am employed/promoted. This stuff is gold for online news sites.

Please, be our guest.  Maybe you can convince him and his congregation/extended family to immigrate.  The outrage value is played out in the states, and the media realized that covering his stunts just encourages him to make a mess out of the grief of yet another set of innocent bystanders.  So please, take him with our blessings.

--Dave

Is it wrong that everytime I see the title of this thread, I think of Flash's Rogues?

Well, the memorial IS happening on Batman Avenue...