Saturday, April 23, 2011

            In the course of half an hour, a “No-Fly-Zone” has been established around St. Louis MO.  This event required no overseas deployments, no U.S. Navy fleet re-deployments, and no thousands-mile long mid-air re-fueling mission to ferry single-seat attack and fighter resources from one side of the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean.  No Tomahawk cruise missiles were used at 1.4 Million each.  No bombs, smart, average, or dumb, were dropped on civilians and non-combatants. 
            The region is closed to all air traffic, be it civil, commercial passenger, or military, until further notice.  Any attempt to fly out of Lambert International Airport (STL) today will likely lead to massive FOD and a blocked runway.  The length of out of service time is indeterminate. 

            There is, however, massive collateral damage.  The towns, subdivisions, and cities that make up north St. Louis County look like a tornado aftermath.  There’s every reason for that.


Tornado closes St. Louis airport, damages nearby cities

By the CNN Wire Staff

April 23, 2011 10:53 a.m. EDT

There are some rather large manufacturing facilities in the Lambert vicinity including a Boeing facility for F-15 and F/A-18 military aircraft.  This facility dates back to the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation.  McDonnell later merged with Douglas and was finally acquired by Boeing.  Some of the best military aircraft this nation has flown, as well as the Mercury and Gemini capsules are St. Louis products.  The “Spirit of St. Louis is rooted in exploration, including aviation. 

St. Louis and its suburbs are some of my favorite cities.  The history of the American westward expansion began there.  The Louis and Clark expedition, the American fur trade, the great rivers and the Great River Road all lend character and history to St. Louis.  It has one of the top zoos in the nation and traces its existence as a city to the French Colonial period. 

It has a phenomenal Italian food presence, lots of really good kosher delis, and many of my favorite fast food franchise, Steak and Shake. 

Though the outlook is rain-soaked and grim today as people and corporations begin the long slow recovery, St. Louis will be flying high again. 

The question of the day becomes how we use the forces of nature to enforce no-fly zones rather than risk the lives of our men and women in uniform and waste billions of dollars on a program that the Arab League nations want done but lacks the capability and will to carry out for their selves. 

In the recent past we’ve seen airports shut down due to Blizzards, heavy snow falls, and volcanic ash.  Thunder storms generate short-term closures almost daily.  Fog grounds many flights.  Tornado warnings over Libya, Syria, and other trouble spots may be next to impossible to generate.  Is eliminating the tribal nature of such countries likely to be any easier than acquiring a localized weather control?




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