• New York says – get ready for Hurricane Irene, capiche?

    Petra Cahill / msnbc.com

    An information sign at New York's Grand Central Terminal warns train passengers: "Hurricane Irene Update Metro-North Will Shutdown Service On All Lines on Sat., Aug. 27, at 12 Noon Check MTA.Info\MNR For Updates."

    Petra Cahill, msnbc.com

    NEW YORK – As Manhattan’s unusually quiet streets braced for Hurricane Irene, the city’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg made it clear they need to take the appropriate precautions – now.

    “You can listen to the noise of the elevated train. That's not going to be here this afternoon, and I think that's the message that people have to start understanding, that starting at noon today - which is in only two and a half hours - mass transit is not going to be available if you have to leave. You have to start right now,” Bloomberg said during a press conference outside the 60th Police Precinct in Coney Island on Saturday morning.

    Even with TV, radio, Internet and word of mouth, it is still a challenge to get the message out that all public transportation will halt midday ET in a city of 8 million.

    Petra Cahill / msnbc.com

    A sign outside The Brick Church at 91st and Park Avenue seen on Friday night warned parishoners:

    On the subway earlier today a recorded message came over the loud speaker alerting people about the planned stoppage of subways, buses and trains. But seconds later, the subway conductor walked into the not-so-crowded train to reiterate the message.

    “Sprechen sie ‘hurricane?’ All subways are closing at 12 noon. If you are in a subway by noon, you’re good,” the conductor said, as he gave the universal thumbs up sign. “If you’re not, you’re out luck.”

    The subway car’s travelers collectively nodded and he moved along.

    At least one church was already planning ahead and had cancelled services for Sunday. The Brick Church at 91st and Park Avenue left notice for its Presbyterian parishioners: “Sunday Morning Worship Service CANCELED Due To Hurricane Please Be Safe.”

    For its part, historic St. Patrick’s Cathedral in midtown Manhattan is planning, for now, its usual services on Sunday morning, right at the time when the storm is expected to hit the city.

    “We’ll be here. Where else are we gonna go?” said a church usher when asked if the Roman Catholic cathedral was planning to suspend services in light of the storm. “Barring any damage to the church – we’ll be here” added another usher.

    Petra Cahill / msnbc.com

    Workers board up windows at Manhattan's Saks Fifth Avenue.

    Across the street, Saks Fifth Avenue was preparing and boarding up its windows. And NBC News’ headquarters was getting ready, too. 30 Rock’s signature flag poles were bare and all the shops at the New York City landmark were closed. For the few tourists still milling around Rockefeller Center’s empty plaza the unspoken message was “closed, capiche?”

  • You think birds falling from the sky is weird?

    By Petra Cahill, News Editor, NBC News

    Flocks of birds falling en masse from the sky in Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky and even Sweden is strange, but these mysterious mass deaths don’t hold a candle to the “Kentucky Meat Shower” of 1876 when it comes to avian oddities.

    “Flesh Descending in a Shower. An Astounding Phenomenon in Kentucky – Fresh Meat Like Mutton or Venison Falling  From A Clear Sky,” read the headline in the New York Times on March 10, 1876.
     
    A second Times article the next day provided more detail on the strange occurrence.

    “Mrs. Crouch, of Olympian Springs, Ky., was employed in the open air and under a particular clear sky, in the celebration of those mysterious rites by which the housewife transmutes scraps of meat, bones and effete overshoes into soap,” it said. “Suddenly, there descended upon her a gentle shower of meat.”    

    For a couple of minutes, it continued, big pieces of meat, three or four inches square, fell all over Mrs. Crouch’s yard. The meat “appeared to be perfectly fresh.”

    The incident was corroborated for the New York Times by two sources – one Mr. Harrison Gill “whose veracity is unquestionable” and a correspondent of the Louisville Commercial newspaper.

    But what exactly was the red flesh? “Two gentlemen” satisfied their curiosity by tasting the meat and determined that it was either mutton or venison, the Times said. 

    The incident sparked a lot of curiosity, skepticism and several scientific studies at the time.

    The Royal Microscopical Society of Great Britain reported the most plausible explanation in its Monthly Microscopical Journal in July 1876.

    After examining several specimens of meat, one scientist determined what fell out of the sky was in fact of “animal origin” (apparently he didn’t trust the taste buds of the locals). Therefore “the Kentucky shower was a veritable ‘meat’ shower.” Beyond that, he admitted that he had no explanation.

    However, he relayed the most popular local theory:  a large pack of buzzards must have flown over the area after having eaten some dead horses, then one of the buzzards disgorged himself and the others followed suit, (as is their custom, according to the journal).

    The scientist reported that similar occurrences with buzzards had been known to happen in the past, so “it would seem that the whole matter is capable of reasonable and simple explanation, and we may expect to hear of similar downfalls in other localities.”

    So watch out!