Mother Nature Shows Her Strength
Tornadoes (龙卷风) and heavy thunderstorms moved across the Great Lakes and into Trumbull County on Saturday evening. The storms were dramatic and dangerous.
George Snyder was driving the fire truck down Route 88 when he first noticed that a funnel (漏半状的) cloud was behind him. "I stopped the truck and watched the funnel cloud. It was about 100 feet off the ground and I saw it go up and down for a while. It was moving toward Bradley Road and then suddenly it disappeared," Snyder said.
Snyder only saw one of the funnel clouds that passed through northeastern Ohio on Saturday. In Trumbull County, a tornado turned trees onto their sides. Some trees fell onto houses and cars. Other trees fell into telephone and electrical wires as they went down.
Amanda Symcheck was having a party when the storm began. "I knew something was wrong," she said." I saw the sky go green and pink (粉红色). Then it sounded like a train rushing toward the house. I started crying and told everyone to go to the basement for protection."
The tornado caused a lot of damage to cars and houses in the area. It will take a long time and much money to repair everything. There was also serious water damage from the thunderstorms. The heavy rains and high wind caused the power to go out in many homes.
The storms caused serious flooding in areas near the river. More than four inches of rain fell in parts of Trumbull County. The river was so high that the water ran into streets and houses. Many streets had to be closed to cars and trucks because of-the high water. This made it difficult for fire trucks, police cars, and other rescue vehicles to help people who were in trouble.
Many people who live near the river had to leave their homes for their own safety. Some people reported five feet of water in their homes. Local and state officials opened emergency shelters for the people who were evacuated (撤走). The Red Cross served meals to them.
"This was a really intense storm," said Snyder, "People were afraid. Mother Nature can be fierce. We were lucky this time. No one was killed."
The weather was nice in Trumbull County on Saturday evening.
A. Right
B. Wrong
C. Not mentioned
Hacking
People tend to think of computers as isolated machines, working away all by themselves. Some do --personal computer without an outside link, like someone's hideaway (隐蔽的) cabin in the woods. But just as most of homes are tied to a community by streets, bus routes and electric lines, computers that exchange intelligence are part of a community—local, national and even global network joined by telephone connections.
The computer network is a creation of the electric age, but it is based on old-fashioned trust. It cannot work without trust. A rogue loose (为所欲为的无赖) in a computer system called hacker (黑客) is worse than a thief entering your house. He could go through anyone's electronic mail or add to, change, distort or delete anything in the information stored in the computer's memory. He could even take control of the entire system by placing his own instructions in the software that runs it. He could shut the computer down whenever he wished, and no one could stop him. Then he could program the computer to erase any sign of his eve~ having been there.
Hacking, our electronic-age term for computer break-in, is more and more in the news—brainy kids vandalizing university records, even pranking (胡闹) about in supposedly safeguarded systems. To those who understand how computer networks are increasingly regulating life in the late 20th century, these are not laughing matters. A potential for disaster is building: A dissatisfied former insurance-company employee wipes out information from payroll (工资表) files. A student sends out a "virus", a secret and destructive command, over a national network. The virus copies itself at lightning speed, jamming the entire network—thousands of academic, commercial and government computer systems. Such disastrous cases have already occurred. Now exists the possibility of terrorism by computer. Spoiling a system responsible for air-traffic control at a busy airport, or knocking out the telephones of a major city, is a relatively easy way to spread panic. Yet neither business nor government has done enough to toughen its defenses against attack. For one thing, such defenses are expensive; for another, they may interrupt communication m the main reason for using computers in the first place.
The writer mentions "a thief" in the second paragraph
A. to show that a hacker is more dangerous than a thief.
B. to tell people that thieves like to steal computers nowadays.
C. to demand that a protective computer system should be set up against thieves.
D. to demonstrate that hackers and thieves are the same people.