L'shanah tovah!

Missouri River flooding

Operation Mighty Mo: The (Ongoing) Flood of 2011

For the past 90 days, Missouri has experienced record flooding as the result of heavy snowmelt in the West. The flooding along the Missouri River continues to cause levee breaks, interstate closings, and damage to towns and farms north and east of the metro. Join Jud Kneuvean, Chief of Emergency Management at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to learn about the Corps’ response to the flooding and how Kansas City has been prepared to handle the increased water flow.

Noon to 1:00 pm on Thursday, September 8 in the Auditorium of Linda Hall Library, 5109 Cherry Street, KC MO 64110

Free and open to the public

Acoustic design & Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

In honor of the opening of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, we rebroadcast the interview with acoustics designer Christopher Jaffe from earlier this year. As promised, here is a link to Kyle McQuiston's interview about the construction of the Kauffman Center. Deb also announced that "Building Kansas City" is taking a break for September and will return later this year. Listen to the podcast.

Explosives and fireworks

Dr. Paul Worsey from Missouri S&T University joined the show from the studio of KMST in Rolla. Dr. Worsey is an explosives and fireworks expert, so we talked about blowing things up! He helps run a high school explosives summer camp, too. Listen to the podcast.

Water park design

Dave Schwartz, P.E. from Water's Edge Aquatic Design joined the show to discuss the behind-the-scenes details and hydraulic engineering of water park rides. We talked about everything from the swirl-bowl conical ride to supercritical flow! Listen to the podcast.

Johnson County Crimalistics Lab design

Randy Braun, P.E. from Walter P. Moore and Tony Achity, R.Arch. from PGAV joined the show to discuss some of the design constraints for the Johnson County Crimalistics Laboratory in Olathe. The building has special isolation for vibrations, stormwater handling, and had to interact with the neighboring communications building. Listen to the podcast.

Global warming skepticism

Dr. Deb took the opportunity to share some technical questions about the causes of global warming in this live show. She commented on the survey of climate scientists and meteorologists, and shared some audio from the 2011 Heartland International Conference on Climate Change from Dr. Nicola Scafetta (Duke University) and Dr. Willie Soon (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). The link is to the full video lectures which include their graphs and slides. It's good to ask questions! Listen to the podcast.

Gulf oil spill recovery

Professor Terry Richardson from the University of North Alabama joined the show by telephone to discuss the field of ecology and the impact and recovery of the Gulf Coast from the oil spill. He was instrumental, as authorized by the State of Alabama, to ensure good conduct by the clean-up volunteers in protecting the coastal ecosystem of Alabama. Listen to the podcast.

Hunt Midwest

Mike Bell and Dick Ringer from Hunt Midwest joined the show to discuss the history of the development of the Hunt Midwest properties in the northland, the Hunt Midwest Business Center, and the outlook for industrial properties in the Kansas City area. Listen to the podcast.

Missouri River race

Scott Mansker returned to talk about the races on the Missouri (MR340) and the Kansas (Kawnivore 100) Rivers. Listen to the podcast.

Rollercoaster design

Bruce Nelson, a mechanical engineering designer with S&S Worldwide discussed rollercoaster design. S&S has two rides in the Kansas City area: Space Shot at Worlds of Fun (opened 1996) and Double Shot at Celebration City in Branson (opened 2003). He discussed new design directions, and how they determine allowable accelerations on people so that the design is thrilling but not causing great discomfort. Deb also did a quick overview of rollercoaster history. Listen to the podcast.

July 4th - Independence Day

Call-in show

Your host, Dr. Deb, discussed the Kansas City Water Garden tour, and gave away tickets, gave a brief recap of the recent Sixth International Conference on Climate Change, and read the list of signers of the Declaration of Independence. Listen to the podcast.

Highway interchange designs

Tom Evans, P.E. from the Missouri Dept. of Transportation District 4 joined the show to discuss some new developments in highway interchanges. Listen to the podcast.

Brookside history

LaDene Morton is the author of The Brookside Story: Shops of Every Necessary Convenience and joined the show to talk about J.C. Nichols and the history of Brookside. She also discussed her recent experience in Joplin, MO (tornado damage). Her book is available from Amazon.com. Listen to the podcast.

LA's ZERO solid waste plan

Ruth Abbe from HDR's San Francisco office joined the show by telephone to talk about the work she has done on crafting Los Angeles' zero solid waste plan. She shared the reason for LA's move: citizen interest in reducing waste, rather than a crisis decision because the landfills were full. She discussed the variety of wastes and their final destinations, including large item waste (furniture, appliances, etc.) Listen to the podcast.

Call-in show with Jerry Richardson

Dr. Jerry Richardson, Ph.D., P.E., D.WRE and Dr. Deb were available to take your calls. Jerry spoke about past floods on the Mississippi River and what's going on this spring/summer on the Missouri and Mississippi. Listen to the podcast. Dr. Richardson spoke at length in an earlier interview on the 1927 Mississippi flood - listen here to that archived interview.

Memorial Day

Our favorite meteorologist

Andy Bailey from the National Weather Service in Pleasant Hill, MO discussed weather safety and the weather patterns that caused our spring weather. Please note that the interview was recorded before the severe tornadoes in Joplin, MO and Oklahoma City during May 22-24, 2011. Listen to the podcast.

Lafarge Concrete

Steve Kidwell and Jarrod Huntley from Lafarge shared how cement dust is made, and how industrial byproducts like coffee grounds, construction debris, and brewery waste are used as fuel in the Lafarge plant. Listen to the podcast.