Frame of reference

So, round here, we still have a couple of large piles of storm debris in our front yard. If it doesn't get picked up in a day or two we'll get it taken care of our selves. Don't want the grass to die out completely, after all.

They say that Hurricane Ike has left us with something like 15 million cubic yards of debris. It's hard to imagine how much that is without a frame of reference. Here's one. Let's imagine that WALL*E were doing his trash-compacting and stacking job with all this debris, placing it in an area one football field long and three wide. When WALL*E was done stacking, the tower of trash would be over 2400 feet high. That is taller than the current tallest building on earth, the Burj Dubai.

That's a lot of debris.

Tags: Hurricane Ike, Storm Debris, Burj Dubai