Well; they didn't say that. Only that it's true last year and so far this year.
I know they're only talking about a year and a half's worth; but given all the fires and structure damage I see each time a storm comes through (claims); I'm just curious as to if they considered causes from lightning other than a direct strike / electrocution. I'm not saying they have to be wrong, just curious.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Having gone to grad school in C-ville myself, I do recall the funniness of that paper. My main complaint was stuff got repeated to fill up space in the columns, like "The mayor said xxx road will be upgraded. The sheriff confirmed that xxx road will be upgraded".

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

I understood your curiosity which is why I followed it up with what I found. I didn't find the answer, but from the NOAA site they don't mention lightning caused damage except for conduction methods. So; my guess would be "no".

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

A couple of headlines from the local Fox station...
Thousands attend funeral for Iowa football shot and killed during a team workout
I bet it deflated fairly quickly.

Clocking ticking as Ohio lawmakers face July 1 deadline
Clocking?

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

One from physorg.

First ever worldwide census of caribou and reindeer reveals a dramatic decline
Ok, if it's the first ever, how....?

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Great one.

Actually, this is how they did the study. They went to Alaska, and found a big herd of caribou. They camped out, and the next morning looked out, and there were none. A dramatic decrease, from hundreds to zero in just a few hours.

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As above, so below

The State (Columbia, SC) used to add little snippets of fact to fill out short columns. Stuff like "Idaho Falls has the U.S.'s 450th largest airport."

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Later . . .

I like that kind of thinking. It's kind of like the little fill-ins in the Reader's digest.
I wonder if any papers do it with changing font sizes or spacing. I'm sure that could be hardly noticable if done right.

Power Knocked Out For 20K Residents
I'm assuming there should be another word on that sentence.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

I'm assuming the guy who sends the walkie-talkie command to the other guy to "Flip on the power switch" was sending said transmission, when a lightning strike disrupted the signal causing the recipiant to miss the transmission, and thus forget to "flip the switch." This resulted in 20,000 residents not having power. Remember, simplest solution is the most likely solution.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

"auto"?

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Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info

Golf Cart Driver Injured In Collision With Minivan

Assuming this is the same minivan as the one that hit him ("the" instead of "an")... I do hope he tried more than just honking.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

According to the article, the minivan seems to have won. How shocking.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

The greeting card section at the local Target store had a divider marked "Brother-Sister Anniversary."

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Later . . .

Interesting. I guess some step-siblings might get cards for each other on their parents' anniversary.

I'm pretty sure it means your brother OR your sister . . . except in Deliverance County maybe.

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Later . . .

Twisted, evil aspects to this story aside (digging up old graves and dumping the bodies to resell the plots), one bit did catch my eye for other reasons.

Followed by a paragraph about the bail amounts and then:
Now, I'll accept that maybe it's true that they didn't know "immediately", but surely, by the time they can name the attorney and contact the PD office, that last line is no longer relevant.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Before reading the article, I noticed what may be an interesting difference in culture here.
In some countries plots in graveyards are rented rather than bought and if not renewed the grave may be emptied of surviving remains and reused.
In Denmark a plot is safe for 10-15/20-30 years after the last interred urn/coffin after which the plot may be reused if it's impossible to contact any relatives for renewal.
In Denmark cemeteries are also heavily regulated and not for profit and emptying graves and reverent disposal of any remains that haven't decomposed entirely is a part of the normal duties for gravediggers.

After reading the article, the bit I found offensive was that they ignored the reverent disposal.

And naturally that whoever added info about the attorney couldn't be bothered to read the whole article to see if it still made sense.

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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

That is interesting. Seems like I recall China doing something similar because of population density, but it was a long time ago and I may have it totally wrong.

I could see something like being done in Europe as well, for similar reasons.

Here in the US, mortuaries are big business. It's probably sad that it doesn't surprise me that a smaller cemetery might do this if they were out of room.

The general feeling that I think most in the US have is that the grave is the "final" resting place. There is no reason it should ever be disturbed, and usually takes a court order.

But I agree that the worst part of it was the impression the story gave about what they did with the previous remains.

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I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

I have no idea how graveyards are regulated in the UK, but a well-kept secret is that there is no legal requirement to bury a body in a graveyard at all. As I understand it, you just need the permission of a landowner, and you can bury a body wherever you like, provided it is more than a certain distance from a watercourse (100 yards I think). Even odder is that there is no specific depth requirement. I know people who have done this (in Wales) to save the cost of a funeral, but also at the request of the deceased.

Needless to say, neither local authorities nor funeral directors wish this to be known generally.

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γνῶθι σεαυτόν

That seems practical.

I seem to remember Yorick being disinterred in favor of Ophelia in some story set in Denmark.

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Later . . .

The treatment of death and corpses is interestingly diverse among cultures. I mean, some go so far as to put (some of) their dead on display. I've heard about cultures that believe eating the dead either gives the diners powers or plays a role in the "reincarnation" of the deceased (though that's obviously not what most cultures would consider acceptable). I was watching a show about . . . Ireland's ancient ruins? . . . that included a segment about a church built over an old crypt. One can go down into said crypt and view the bodies that have been unusually preserved due to atmosphere and minerals in the area. They don't let just anyone down there, mind you, but the host was guided to the body of a supposed Knight of the Templar, and the guide had the host shake his hundreds-years-old hand. That's something most Americans would find shockingly morbid.

So it doesn't surprise me that some places wouldn't hold a grave plot to as high of a regard as we do here in America. But as was said, we tend to view our graves as permanent and sacred. At least until a mall or housing development needs to be built. The utter disregard for ceremony or respect in disposing of the old bodies is just the icing on the cake.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."

Pratchett's Johnny and the Dead involves a graveyard that is to be dug up so an office complex can go up in its place. And, yes, Johnny and his friends do talk about what will happen to all the bones.

My understanding is that famous people are more likely to keep their graves, though I hear Jim Morrison is in serious danger of eviction.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Speaking of Yorick and Ophelia, they were talking about temporarily moving William Shakespeare's grave due to repairs on the church in which it's located. I don't know the current status of that project.

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Later . . .

But there's a curse! A curse on his tomb! Or do we only believe in Egyptian curses?

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

I'll say! the only guy in there is stone dead.

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Though I can't vouch for it being the real thing, that reminds me of going to Tiananmen Square several decades ago and seeing the body of Chairman Mao on display. Plastified or something. But he was really lying there, just like a recently deceased person.

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As above, so below

I believe that the Soviets had Lenin bronzed, or something like that too.

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Later . . .

Every few years, Lenin got re-embalmed. (It probably happens with Mao, too.) I don't know what they've since done with him, but I've no doubt he's still in fine, recognizable condition. Medgar Evers was excessively embalmed so he would hold up better in the summer heat and so more people would get to view the body, and when he was exhumed in the '80s, he was still in near-perfect shape. Similarly, they re-embalmed Lincoln pretty much every stop of the funeral train, and when he was finally put in the tomb he's in now, the people burying him took one last look (this, too, was decades later), and he was very clearly recognizable.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

Police Say Drunk Driver Left Beer On Trunk

"Who he then"?
He didn't suspect it before stopping the car?

Although; I guess if the glass didn't fall off, it might be a good sign that he wasn't driving erratically.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

Unless the glass that was left on the trunk were the remains of the store-front window he drove through a moment prior.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.
"In order to increase awareness of the homeless, security have been given binoculars."