#storm drains

[follow-up-news]

A new federal rule aims to keep people from being pulled into storm drains during heavy rains. It comes after ProPublica’s 2021 reporting on how dangerous and uncovered storm drains were responsible for at least three dozen deaths across the country in a six-year span. The rule, which went into effect in May and applies to new projects funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, builds on guidance the federal agency released in 2022 in direct response to ProPublica’s investigation. It requires that local officials overseeing projects in areas prone to flooding consider safety measures for drain openings, such as grates to cover them. Deaths caused by storm drains continue to occur across the country. In early May, a 10-year-old boy in Christiana, Tennessee, was pulled into a drain while playing with other children in water after severe storms hit the community. The child died 10 days later after his family pulled him off life support. Officials running HUD-funded projects must now, among other measures intended to minimize harm to the environment and people, consider whether they need “protective gates or angled safety grates for culverts and stormwater drains.” Project leaders have to then explain to federal officials which safety features will be adopted and which were considered but not used. A spokesperson for the federal agency told ProPublica in an email that officials believe the new rule and language “will help encourage the use of safety measures for stormwater infrastructure to prevent injury or drownings during flood events.”

[jefkphotography]

A storm drain.

Photography.

[gggermicide]

Twitter trend to draw Pokémon matching their different abilities ! I will soon hold a giveaway on twitter if anyone is interested

[irreplaceable-spark]

Homeless RV Encampments are Polluting LA Water and Beaches | Barry Coe

"Unbelievable stuff going on the amount of trash. There are hazardous materials, leftover burned-out carcasses of motor homes are all over the place. 9000 gallons of raw sewage a month are going into the wastewater system. That's the storm drain system, not the sewers. The storm drain carries it straight to Santa Monica Bay." Siyamak sits down with Barry Coe, former commissioner from Santa Monica. Today he will talk about how the RVs went out of control in the streets in Los Angeles and how it impacts.

[moldspace]

a mural from this month! the theme was keeping our watersheds clean - i included some local amphibians as water quality ambassadors

[snalz-artt]

a brilliant Ability Forms fakemon trend started on twitter by @n0rtist, i remembered no one else on earth loves cradily as much as me so i decided to give it a go despite my utter inability to replicate the pokemon artstyle <3

[genericaces]

boom comics i see your therapized spander and i raise you this

bonus:

[unashamedly-enthusiastic]

The phrase 'Someone ought to do something' was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider 'and that someone is me'.

Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

Quotes that genuinely rewired my brain

[beverage2000]

my cave painting of 2 planes playing basketball

[3liza]

saw a youtube sponsorship for a brand that markets itself as "masculine shoes in small sizes, for trans men" and if the entire idea wasn't already preposterous (this is part of a large scale marketing push to convince trans people that clothing that has been available on the normal heterosexual market for generations is "hard to find" so they can charge you hundreds of dollars for it), it's also ugly, and they have chosen to call their company "Tomboy Toes". if you said those two words to my face in a shoe store i would slap you

$120 for a black or brown version of the standard school uniform brogue which has been available all the way down to toddler sizes since uhhhhhhh approximately 1820.

just to double check my sense of reality i went to the largest single online shoe market on earth besides Amazon (zappos) and typed in "women's brogues" and selected size 5 which would be pushing the lower limit on the larger part of the bell curve of adult AFAB people on earth, or at least the northern hemisphere, and there are many options in approximately the same price range depending on brand name, with sales regularly down to much less, on similar or identical styles. ebay also. Tomboy Toes carries down to size EU33 which is around 3.5 US Women's and again, that's just in the children's section if you need Picture Day/uniform (children)/ Office Whatever (adult) Shoes and they are on eBay lightly used in great numbers because kids grow out of them in 6-10 months.

is it annoying to be shopping in "women's section" or "kids section" for these things when you are an adult man. yes. so i dont understand the marketing impetus to replicate that exact scenario by naming your company for adult trans men something i would assume was a sassy yet misguided terf brand if i found it on a label in a generic wingtip at Goodwill. cis men who are very small also have to shop in the small sections for their small clothes. i am wearing a t-shirt meant for a 7 year old right now, it says so on the label. it fits me better than any of the shirts i own that are made for the standard american adult. i literally have bigger things to worry about

naturally their "vegan leather" selection is much larger but again, it's ugly Trendy Booties that will fall apart in a year and are, i cant emphasize this enough, made of plastic, nothing special, and in standard women and children's sizes which are already plentiful at every shoe retailer. why are we letting these "trans brands" charge us a $100 tax to pretend to take us seriously (while at the same time calling us "tomboys")? does anyone know

i do, its actually because of the learned helplessness issue again. the accepted wisdom at the tumblr layer of transness is 'its so hard to find [item of clothing that is suitable for trans people]" because the knowledge of how to shop for these items in the actual market has completely evaporated within the last ten years, i watched it happen right in front of me. but it's a complete fallacy, you can find this stuff easily. you can find large women's shoes, small men's shoes, women's clothing with wide shoulders or long torsos, there are entire stores for this already and measurements and sectiions within "department stores" (such as they are) and then after that there are one million billion foam inserts and seams and button placements and belts and scarves and gloves and hem lengths and blah blah blah that trans people and also cis people who are not standard-shaped or who just want their shoes or bras or shirts to fit have already been using for thousands of years so ive been mad about this all day. TOMBOY TOES. they are having us for absolute fools. just call me a slur at this point

i already know some nincompoop is going to match me paragraph for paragraph in a heated defense of the hundred dollar jingle keys boring shoes so i just want them to know in advance: we are not the same. i have so many cool shoes it is unbelievable. in every gender imaginable. and i didn't pay more than like $50 for any of them. also no theres no cheat sheet to learning to buy clothing for your body, i do not say this with any rancor either, its just hard, it takes a long time, and i dont have a cheatsheet for it because there isnt one. except rule #1: dont buy $120 boring ugly shoes from someone jingling their keys in front of your face and calling it Queer Fashion when you can get them for a lot less basically anywhere $120 isnt even a lot for a GOOD pair for mid-range, non-designer leather dress shoes. if you know they will last for ten years and stand up to resoling, it's completely fine. but not for thooooooose

[jefkphotography]

A storm drain and street stones.

[5ftboy]

"They were good guys. And I don't think the people who killed 'em ever knew that."

[420000flix]

[heavenpierceher]

[zytes]

last light

[chiropteracupola]

pouring spaghetti down the storm drain for the local raccoons should really be a thing that happens in tf2 instead of a thing which is done in real life by my neighbor.