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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
AS IT IS 2013-08-19 Survival Shelters, Tornadoes2 and Old Ironsides 生存避难所,龙卷风和老铁壁
Hello, and welcome to the Monday edition of As It Is, our daily show for people learning everyday American English.
大家好，欢迎大家收听周一版-—事实，我们教大家学习美式英语的日常秀。
I’m Christopher Cruise in Washington.
我是正在华盛顿的克里斯托弗克鲁斯。
Today on the program, we talk with a scientist who is working to help weather experts improve their tornado1 predictions.
今天节目，我们将会和一位科学家一起讨论，他正在努力帮助气象专家提高对龙卷风气象的预测。
“I’m seeing it through computers and through the radar3 screens, which are making three-dimensional images of the wind and the debris4 and the hail, flowing around the storm.”
“我通过电脑和雷达显示来完成风暴和流动在其周围的碎片、冰雹的三维立体图。”
And we’ll take you back to the day in 1812 when a famous American ship got its nickname...
我们将带你重返1982的某一天，在那一天，一艘著名的美国船只有了他的昵称。
But first, we tell you about a disputed project to build a large survival shelter in case disaster strikes the United States...
但是，我们将会先告诉你一项非常有争议的项目，此项目为以防灾难降临美国，将建立一个大型的生存躲避所。
The World’s Biggest Private Survival Shelter?
世界最大的私人生存避难所？
For many years, the United States government has kept underground shelters for the president and other top officials in case of a major disaster or attack. But ordinary citizens do not have such a place to go to -- unless, of course, they build their own.
多年来，美国政府一直维持着为总统和其他高级官员的地下避难所，以防重大灾害或袭击。但普通公民却无处可去，除非他们自己建造。
One man has decided5 to do just that, but not only for himself. He is building a huge underground shelter that will hold thousands of people. Not everyone thinks that’s a good idea.
有一个人决定这么做，却不仅仅是为了他自己。他正建立着一个可以容纳数千人的巨大地下避难所。但并不是每个人都认为这是个好主意。
The VOA’s Mike Richman recently spoke6 with the man -- as well as his critics.
Voa的瑞克里奇曼最近同这位男子及其批评者进行了对话。
Robert Vicino thinks humans are living in what is sometimes called “the end times.” He believes that a natural or manmade disaster will soon make life on the surface of the Earth impossible.
罗伯特·维奇诺认为人类正处于有时所称的末日时代。他认为一个自然或人为的灾难很快就会毁灭一切生活在地球的可能性。
His company -- called “Vivos” -- is building what it says is the world’s largest private underground survival shelter.
他的公司Vivos正在建立一个据称世界上最大的私人地下避难所。
Mr. Vicino says he felt the urge to build the shelter more than 30 years ago.
维奇诺感受到他这30年来建立避难所的强烈欲望。
“Somehow, I had this inspiration that I needed to build a shelter deep underground for as many as 5,000 people for what is coming our way. And the key word there is ‘coming,’ and the question is ‘from where and what?’ I didn’t know the answer. I still don’t.”
“不知怎的，我就有了灵感，我需要建立一个可以容纳5000人的地下避难所来面对未来。这句话的关键词就是‘未来’，问题是‘从哪里来和是什么’，我没想到答案，至今也没有。”
The shelter will be built in the mid-western American town of Atchison, Kansas, 40 meters below a limestone7 mountain, in a place that was once used by the Army to store weapons.
避难所将会建在美国中西部的小镇堪萨斯，位于一个石灰岩山地地下40米处，此处曾被军队用来储存武器。
Only people who pay the one-time cost of $20,000 can use it. Anyone in the world can join.
只有那些一次性支付20000美元费用的人可以使用。世界上任何人都可以加入。
Paul Seyfried is an adviser8 to a group called the American Civil Defense9 Association. It tries to prepare the public for manmade and natural disasters. Mr. Seyfried wonders if the Vivos shelter could operate if a disaster hits.
保罗·塞弗里德是一民美国公民国防协会的顾问。此协会尝试着为公众遭受人为或自然灾害做准备。塞弗里德先生想知道，如果灾难降临，Vivos避难所是否可以操作。
“My only reservation I would have is who is going to be in charge of law enforcement and then when you put 1,500 or 1,600 people together from all these different backgrounds with varying amounts of food and other support -- I’m just trying to get my mind around all the problems they’re going to have with that.”
“我唯一保留意见的就是谁将来负责执法，当你把不同背景的1500乃至1600人聚在一起，并汇聚着不等的食物和其他支援，我只想知道他们可能所面临的所有问题。”
Jacque Pregont is president of the Atchison Chamber10 of Commerce, a business group. The organization hopes the shelter will bring in travelers who will spend money and improve the town’s economy -- disaster or not.
雅克·普莱根特是商业集团艾奇森商会的董事长。该组织希望无论是否有灾害，避难所能够吸引会花钱的旅游者，从而带动小镇经济。
“I would hope that they are going to end up coming here and spending some time here and not just waiting for a catastrophic event.”
“我希望他们最终能够来到这里并花一些时间,不只是等待一个灾难性的事件。”
I’m Mike Richman.
我是麦克·理查曼。
Getting Close to Tornadoes
接近龙卷风
Weather experts are able to predict bad weather better than ever before thanks to satellites, high-altitude balloons and radar stations. But for many years these experts have incorrectly predicted tornado formation, giving false warnings about 75 percent of the time.
气象专家能够比之前更好地预测恶劣天气，要归功于卫星、高空气球以及雷达站。但这多年来，专家们评判龙卷风形成错误，提供虚假情报高达75%。
So, scientists are working to improve their tornado predictions. They are getting close to the large and dangerous wind storms to see how they form.
因此，科学家们致力于提高对龙卷风的预测。他们正接近最大最危险的风暴，以研究其形成原因。
Jerilyn Watson reports.
Doppler is a type of radar that identifies weather conditions based on the flow and speed of objects through the air.Scientist Joshua Wurman was the first to put Doppler radar equipment on a vehicle and drive it into the path of a tornado.
在科罗拉多州西部的博尔德城市，沃曼先生领导着一个研究恶劣天气的中心。他把他的多普勒雷达设备放在大卡车上。沃曼先生和他的同事们坐在卡车里面，研究通过信号返回形成的计算机图像。
“I invented the Doppler on Wheels back in the 1990s because I was frustrated11 that we couldn’t see enough detail inside tornados12 and hurricanes. We had blurry13 images of all these things, and in order to really understand the physics -- the math of what’s going on inside a tornado, how exactly are they forming, how strong are the winds right at the surface -- we need to get up very, very, close.”
Mr. Wurman heads the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder14, a city in the western state of Colorado. He has put his Doppler radar equipment on large trucks. Mr. Wurman and his colleagues sit inside the truck and study the computer images formed by the signals that return.
“I’m seeing it through the computers and through the radar screens, which are making three-dimensional images of the wind and the debris and the rain and hail flowing around the storm.”
“我通过电脑和雷达显示来完成风暴和流动在其周围的碎片、冰雹的三维立体图。”
Using information from satellites, stationary15 radar networks, and computer models, the team finds a storm that could become a tornado and drives the truck right into that area. Doppler on Wheels has been close to over 200 tornados so far.
利用从卫星、固定式雷达网络和计算机模型得来的信息，这个团队发现一个风暴,这可能会变成一个龙卷风并将卡车卷进去。在轮子上的多普勒已经接近龙卷风差不多200米。
Information gathered by the instruments could help builders design stronger homes in areas where such dangerous storms are common.
由仪器收集的信息可以帮助房屋建筑商在这种危险风暴常见的地区设计出强大的房屋。
Scientists are learning more about which storms develop into tornados by studying them from start to end. Mr. Wurman says that radar information has taught them that a “wind surge” could be what causes a storm to turn into a tornado.
科学家们正在研究更多关于发展成龙卷风的风暴，通过从其开始到结束的过程进行研究。沃曼先生说,雷达信息显示,“风暴潮”可能是导致风暴变成龙卷风的原因。
“The scientific process is that we need to now observe that and repeat that observation in maybe a dozen or more other thunderstorms, and in maybe a dozen or more thunderstorms that aren’t making tornados, to really see if that surge causes tornados and if there is no surge, whether there is no tornado. ”
“科学的过程就是,现在我们需要观测并重复也许十几个或者更多其他的雷暴的观察，也许这十几个或更多的雷暴形成不了龙卷风，要真正看到是否风暴潮导致龙卷风,如果没有风暴潮,是否就没有了龙卷风。”
I’m Jerilyn Watson.
Old Ironsides
201 years ago today the 40-gun American Navy ship, the U.S.S. Constitution, got its nickname “Old Ironsides.” The name is linked to a battle between the Constitution and the British ship H.M.S. Guerriere during the War of 1812. The traditional naval16 story says a Constitution crew member watched a British cannonball hit the Constitution. The missile apparently17 did no damage to the wooden ship’s oak hull18. The crew member reportedly said “Hooray, her sides are like iron!” And the nickname was born.
The Constitution won that battle and served through the war. It later became a training ship. It was scheduled to be destroyed in 1830. But many Americans opposed the idea.
One of them was the poet Oliver Wendell Holmes. He was the father of the future Supreme19 Court justice of the same name. He wrote a sad and angry poem to protest the planned destruction of the ship. He called his poem, not surprisingly, “Old Ironsides.”
The ship was saved -- mostly because of the poem -- but its condition worsened over the next century. In 1925, a national fund-raising campaign paid for a badly-needed restoration.
The U.S.S. Constitution is now a national historic monument. “Old Ironsides” rests at the Boston Navy Yard in Massachusetts.
I’m Christopher Cruise. From all of us at The Voice of America, thanks for listening today, and we’ll see you tomorrow!
Original reporting by Mike Richman and Rosanne Skirble
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1
tornado
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| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
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tornadoes
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| n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 ) | |
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radar
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| n.雷达，无线电探测器 | |
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debris
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| n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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adviser
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| n.劝告者，顾问 | |
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defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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tornados
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| n.龙卷风，旋风( tornado的名词复数 ) | |
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blurry
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| adj.模糊的；污脏的，污斑的 | |
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boulder
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| n.巨砾；卵石，圆石 | |
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stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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