5大因白癡造成的災難（下）
5 Huge Disasters Caused By Idiots Part 2
5大因白癡造成的災難（下）
3. A Man Burned Down A City Trying To DIY A Sword
一名男子爲了自制一把劍，燒燬了一座城市
On all the best Discovery Channel shows, the hosts always say the same thing before they do something cool: "Kids, don't try this at home!" Apparently, they need to send a memo to adults as well, because John Gomes of Cohoes, New York didn't see any way building a makeshift barrel-forge in his backyard to make a sword could go wrong.
在探索頻道的所有最棒的節目中，主持人在做一些酷炫的事情之前總會說同樣的話：“孩子們，不要在家裏嘗試這個！”顯然，他們還需要給成年人發一份提醒，因爲紐約州科霍斯市的John Gomes認爲，在自家後院建一個臨時鍛造桶來造一把劍是不可能出錯的。
On November 30, 2017, Gomes was inspired by an episode of Forged in Fire on the History Channel to forswear the inflated prices of his local mall sword store and make his own. Sure, he didn't have any of the equipment to do it, but what he did have was an apartment with a backyard and a steel barrel in it, and that's just as good, right? Unfortunately, it was a rather windy afternoon and he couldn't get the fire hot enough, so he moved the barrel closer to the building. The steel barrel full of fire. To the wood structure. Because it was windy.
2017年11月30日，Gomes受到歷史頻道《鍛刀大賽》的啓發，發誓要遠離當地賣劍的商店裏的虛高價格，自己動手製作一把劍。當然，他沒有任何設備，但他有一個帶後院的公寓，裏面有一個鋼桶，這也不錯，對吧？不幸的是，那天下午風很大，他無法把火燒得足夠熱，所以他把桶移到離大樓更近的地方。鋼桶裏火在燃燒，隨後就燃燒到了木製結構，都是因爲風。
Obviously, the building caught on fire, and because of that stubborn wind, it quickly spread across town. In the end, 28 buildings were destroyed or damaged, and the resulting cloud of smoke was so dense and massive that it appeared on the radar of the National Weather Service. Miraculously, no one was hurt, but a lot of businesses and families were left homeless, so Gomes's neighbors had plenty of reason to be salty. He pled down to a year in jail and more than $620,000 in restitution, so now he really can't afford a sword.
很明顯，大樓着火了，而且由於那陣頑固的風，火勢很快蔓延到整個城鎮。最後，28座建築物被毀或損壞，產生的濃密且大範圍的煙霧，甚至出現在了國家氣象局的雷達上。奇蹟般地，沒有人受傷，但許多公司和家庭無家可歸，所以Gomes的鄰居們完全有理由感到不安。他被判一年監禁，賠償超過62萬美元，所以現在他真的買不起劍了。
2. A Woman Wanted To "Help" Her "Bored" Firefighter Friends
一位女士想要“幫助”她那些“無聊”的消防員朋友們
In 2019, Sadie Renee Johnson was a 23-year-old Oregon woman who just wanted to help her friends. They happened to be firefighters, and they were starting to find the long shifts sitting around the firehouse tedious. Johnson interpreted this as "Please start a fire for us."
2019年，23歲的俄勒岡州女子Sadie Renee Johnson只是想幫助她的朋友，而她的朋友們碰巧是消防隊員，他們正覺得在消防站周圍的輪班工作很乏味。Johnson將這種狀態解釋爲“請爲我們來一場火災吧”。
When she subsequently threw some fireworks out the window of a moving car into the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, she only meant to cause a little fire. You know, just a quick spray job to break up the monotony. But the fireworks lit up the brush along the roadside and expanded northwest, and soon, 51,480 acres of brush and timber were burning. It caused an estimated $7.9 million in damage and took the firefighters more than a month to fully put out the fire.
而後，當她把一些煙花從一輛行駛中的汽車窗戶扔到印第安保留地的溫泉區域時，她只是想引起一場小火災。你知道，只要是快速噴一下水就能打破工作的單調。但煙花點燃了路邊的灌木叢，並向西北方向蔓延，很快，51480英畝的灌木和木材開始燃燒。據估計，火災造成了790萬美元的損失，消防隊員花了一個多月的時間才把火完全撲滅。
Even though her plan hadn't gone quite as she'd hoped, Johnson resolved to look on the blindingly bright side. After two days, she took to Facebook, asking her friends "Like my fire?" because she wasn't just gonna not take credit for getting her brawny hero friends off their lazy asses. Unfortunately, Johnson's foresight isn't as strong as her can-do spirit, and the Facebook post left little room for interpretation to the police. She was ordered to spend 18 months in prison and pay restitution of at least $50 a month until she's paid the full price of the damages, which would take over 13,000 years. Just a lifelong, $50-per-month obnoxiousness tax.
儘管她的計劃並沒有如她想的那樣發展，Johnson還是決心要看到事情光明的一面。兩天之後，她在Facebook上問她的朋友們“喜歡我放的火嗎？” ，因爲讓她強壯的英雄朋友們不再怠惰的這份榮譽，她可不能拱手讓予他人。不幸的是，Johnson的遠見並不及她的“我能行”的精神，在Facebook上發佈的帖子幾乎沒有留下能向警方解釋的餘地。她被判入獄18個月，每個月至少支付50美元的賠償金，直到付清全部賠償金，而這將花費13000年的時間。這大概只是一個討厭的終身50美元/月的稅吧。
1. A Man Flooded An Entire City To Prevent His Wife From Getting Home
一名男子爲了阻止他的妻子回家，用洪水淹沒了整個城市
James Scott of Quincy, Illinois lived to party, but his wife was just, like, totally cramping his style, man. One day in 1993, according to his friends, he decided to get rid of the broad, at least temporarily. Having spent some time volunteering on the levees that held back the tempestuous Mississippi River, he knew it would only take a few misplaced sandbags and tarps to put a wall of water between him and the Missouri truck stop where his wife was working and buy himself a few days of freedom. He wasn't wrong.
來自伊利諾斯州昆西的James Scott十分享受派對，但是他的妻子卻完全限制了他的天性。據他的朋友說，1993年的一天，他決定擺脫這個婆娘，至少暫時擺脫。他已經在阻擋狂風暴雨的密西西比河的堤壩上做了一段時間的志願者，所以他知道只需要幾個放錯位置的沙袋和防水油布，他和妻子工作的密蘇里州卡車停車站之間就能築起一道水牆，而他就能爲自己贏得幾天的自由。他並沒有什麼錯。
And he would have been able to enjoy them if he'd just kept his mouth shut. He immediately showed up on the TV news claiming that he'd been working on the levees when he noticed the breach and tried to stop it. He's stuck by that story, but authorities couldn't help but notice that he looked awfully clean for a man who'd supposedly been mucking about in the Mississippi. Their suspicions deepened when they found out the point where the levee broke, which had been inspected and declared safe only two hours before the incident, was considered its strongest point. When Scott's friends told them that he'd later bragged about causing the flood, those suspicions hit seabed. Scott was swiftly arrested, becoming the only person ever convicted in Missouri for intentionally causing a catastrophe. He and his wife are now divorced.
只要他什麼都不說，他就能享受這段自由的時光。但他立即出現在電視新聞上，聲稱當注意到堤壩決口時，他一直在堤壩上工作，而且他還試圖阻止這一問題。他沉迷於講述這個故事，但當局不得不注意到，他整個人看起來非常乾淨，就像一個在密西西比河旁遊手好閒的人。隨後當局找到了堤壩決口的地方，正是被認爲是最危險的地方，且在事故發生兩小時前這裏經過了檢查並報告安全，他們的懷疑加深了。到了Scott的朋友們告訴當局，他後來吹噓是他引起了洪水時，這些懷疑就變成了事實。Scott很快被逮捕，成爲了密蘇里州唯一一個因故意製造災難而被定罪的人。他和他的妻子現在離婚了。
翻譯：MS小冰晶
