Industrial Goodies

Destroying Debris: Clearing Away The Effects Of Natural Disasters

It was a diamond blade-powered Rube Goldberg machine that was the main catalyst in cutting down the dock that washed onto Oregon’s Agate Beach into manageable pieces. Gila Tools diamond blades feature circular steel discs with industrial diamonds on its periphery, their edges bear one of three configurations: segmented, continuous rim, or serrated. The diamond blade cores are precision-made with slots that provide faster cooling by allowing water or air to flow between the segments. They are tensioned at the factory so that they always run straight at cutting speeds, giving you smooth and precise cuts throughout. Our diamond blades are engineered for strength and reliability and are designed to withstand hard use to deliver optimal strength even when working on the harshest and most abrasive materials.

That massive dock was just one of many debris from caused by the “Fall Transition” bringing in the Pacific Gyre, which “herded” homes, boats, and even bodies onto the shores of the United States West Coast region. These remnants are actually from last year’s “Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami” also known as the “Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami.”

The “Fall Transition” is part of an annual cycle that coastal winds go through. What happens is that the Northern Hemisphere storm track governing prevailing winds sends those gusts in a completely different direction—from south to north and from offshore to inland—along with everything floating inside those waters. The Pacific Gyre is one of the five major oceanic gyres. An oceanic gyre is any large system of rotating ocean currents, particularly those involved with large wind movements. The term gyre can be used to refer to any type of vortex in the air or the sea, even one that is man-made, but it is most commonly used in oceanography to refer to the major ocean systems.

Japan’s Tōhoku Earthquake was a magnitude 9.0 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake off the country’s coast on March 11, 2011. It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku's Iwate Prefecture, and which, in the Sendai area, travelled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland—decimating everything in its path.