Extending help to homeless residents of Silicon Valley does little if the people on the streets refuse to hear the offer. To overcome the disconnect and bridge the trust between outreach workers and the people they help, EHC Lifebuilders in Silicon Valley often hires workers who have been homeless themselves.

On our final day visiting Silicon Valley in mid-July, these four outreach workers took Business Insider into the field to meet the people they work with every day. The women had all been on the street prior to arriving at EHC's shelter, and after months volunteering had been offered full-time jobs.

"It makes a huge difference in how people see us," Anita, who overcame breast cancer only to find herself on the street, says.

Spreading her arm out to the group of homeless people around us on the ground, she says: "We have this in common. It's the hardest thing in the world to go through, and to understand it, you really have to have lived it."

These four formerly homeless women from EHC Lifebuilders in Silicon Valley confront their past each day going to homeless camps. 

The women take on the challenge of convincing homeless people with immense freedom, to exchange that freedom for the rules of the Boccardo homeless shelter.

Teresa was homeless for three years between the ages of 18 and 21 because she didn't want to stay at home and follow her parents' rules. "I was stupid," she says. "Now I try and convince other people to follow rules, like at the shelter. Life is crazy."

Where they once slipped past fences, EHC workers now have keys. Many of Silicon Valley's homeless camps line riverbeds, and the county water authority gives EHC workers access to areas where groups of people are camped.

They walk into the most grizzled camp sites without any judgment. They offer the homeless help getting shelter and even wordlessly deliver things like pet snacks.

"It makes a difference out here that we've gone through the same things they have," Anita says, while sitting on the curb. "It really does." 

Click here to see our full coverage on the Silicon Valley homeless problem.

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Drugs are a serious problem among the homeless. If not a cause of becoming homeless, drug abuse can come as a result of being out on the streets. 

It isn't easy to check yourself into a facility to get help, especially when drug use can be a form of escape from the everyday harshness that is being homeless. Christine, who has floated around Silicon Valley's streets for 25 years, finally found the strength recently to check herself in for opiate addiction. She had been taking as many as 30 Percocet a day.

As a result of being in the program, she's temporarily off the streets and in subsidized housing. But even the $40 she's required to pay for the program is too much, with only $147 coming in each month from a general assistance check.

Business Insider met Christine before one of her group therapy sessions at the Santa Clara County addiction center in Silicon Valley.

When she was 14 years old, Christine says she ran away from home because she didn't want to follow the rules. "I was dumb," she says.

She has a 22-year-old son who won't speak to her because she won't let him drink at her house or bring over any non-sober friends.

She's thinks she'll be OK. “Either you wanna be sober or you don't,” she says, knowing that staying sober is the only way she'll end up staying in her home.

CLICK HERE to view our full report on homelessness in the Silicon Valley, California.

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When Newport News shipyard built its first boat, the Dorothy, on Virginia's James River in 1890, it was the beginning of an American legacy.

Not long after the Dorothy's launch, Newport News Shipbuilding became renowned for the quality of its ships and the size of its yard, the largest in the world during the early 20th century.

It's a different world in the shipyard; everything is on a scale that's tough to wrap your head around, even the length of its employees' tenure. It's not uncommon for Newport News workers to retire from the company with more than 50 years of service. This is the shipyard where the world's most expensive ship is being built after all. 

The company's human resource officer and corporate VP, Bill Ermatinger, told Business Insider that he has fifth-generation employees today following in the footsteps of their great-great-great-grandfathers.

The following photos offer a glimpse inside this  unique shipbuilding facility with a grand history, and the long relationship with those who defend this country on the seas.

Newport News is located next to the Naval Station at Norfolk, Va., the largest naval base in the U.S. This is no coincidence.

The Newport News, Va., shipyard is home to more than 22,000 employees, massive work spaces, and some of the largest equipment of its kind in the world.

The shipyard hosts the largest crane of its type in the Western Hemisphere.

Prepping has gotten a bit of a bad rap lately. What began as a group of people wisely preparing for a worst-case-scenario type of disaster has been sensationalized through TV shows like National Geographic's "Doomsday Preppers."

Business Insider spoke with two renowned New York City preppers to see how they prepare for a disaster and to find out what they think local residents should do to prepare for another storm like Hurricane Sandy or another power outage that could leave the city in the dark for days or weeks at a time.

Anton Edwards is an expert in emergency preparedness and the executive director of the International Preparedness Network. Jason Charles is a NYC fireman, author, and guest on National Geographic's Doomsday Preppers. He teaches preparedness classes in New York City.

Together they showed us what they had in their "Bug-out Bags" and what they think residents can do to prepare themselves for the unthinkable.

Anton Edwards is an expert in the field of emergency preparedness and has been on the Discovery Channel's "Catch Me if You Can" and "How Will the World End."

Anton picked us up with his friend Barry to show us how they're preparing for a worst-case scenario.

When we arrive at the Brooklyn Ambulance Corps — the headquarters for a group of volunteer EMTs — Anton and Barry head inside to lay out their gear.

I knew it was going to rain only days after booking a flight to visit Colorado this past weekend. I just didn't realize how much.

The weather quickly sidelined my plans to take a dirt bike up to an abandoned ghost town, well above the treeline in the Rockies. 

Rainstorms are dangerous in the mountains, especially in the high country with no shelter. Instead of going into the woods, my brother-in-law and I drove around the eastern side of the Continental Divide wondering if we were going to get pounded by the black swirling clouds to the west.

Fifteen inches of rain fell before I left Sunday, which would have been about 15 feet of snow had it been colder. The rain has so far killed up to seven people, including two teenagers on their way home from a birthday party in Boulder. Those kids were caught in a wall of water and debris while driving a main road outside the city.

Interstate-25 and I-70 were both closed, making Route 285, where I was staying, one of the only routes east and west through that part of the state.

By Saturday, it was obvious the damage was going to be extreme and we headed to Evergreen to take these photos. Evergreen is about 40 miles south of the town of Lyons, that was totally evacuated and filled with the National Guard.

More than a foot of rain has pounded Colorado in the past several days, with clouds like this filling dry creek beds and canyons with raging walls of water and debris.

By Saturday, the rains falling at higher elevations had left heavy objects like this wooden bench at the top of the local dam in Evergreen, Colo. 

At seventy-two-hundred feet above sea level Saturday morning, Evergreen was sunny and warm. It's often like that here when the rains come, and is one reason many don't take warnings seriously. Precipitation can be happening far up in the mountains but will find its way down to the plains, eventually.

Flood waters in this part of the country come hard and fast, carrying everything picked up from the ground on the way down the mountainside. Boulders, chemicals, and waste will pass through town on the way to the eastern part of the state.

So, on top of the crime scene tape strung all over town ...

... the damage to streets ...

... the swamping of walkways ...

... and the near destruction of their mountain homes ...

... the people living in the Colorado mountains have to concern themselves with debris carried in by the waters. Locals said this foam was soap from upstream septic reservoir beds. 

Whatever the foam was from, there was a lot of it.

The people here in Evergreen knew they'd been granted a reprieve compared to the more than a dozen towns declared disaster areas by the federal government.  

Residents in Evergreen were just doing all they could to help each other out and hoping their luck would continue to last.

Many locals volunteered to help the Evergreen Fire Rescue Department (EFR) Sunday. So many in fact, that the Department tweeted: "Thank you for donations of food but please no more. If you want to help, go to (Station) 2 for sandbagging tonight."

Another tweet was sent, reading: "Thank you Evergreen neighbors! [The Department] has plenty of help sandbagging."

Rains in Colorado continue as the national guard and FEMA help the displaced and look for people still trying to get out of the water's path.

SEE ALSO: Pictures from the city of Boulder's flooding

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"The ladies really like Eddie," my stepsister tells me on the way to meet the 71-year-old biker for breakfast somewhere in the Rockies.

The man we're about to meet one bright September morning is one of the first members of the legendary outlaw biker outfit called the Iron Horsemen Motorcycle Club (IHMC).

The FBI calls the Horsemen a "one percent" Outlaw Motorcycle Gang (OMG), meaning the group has committed to enforce the club's laws with violence and maintain an ongoing criminal enterprise that brings them into "serious conflict with society and the law." The Feds also believe the group actively recruits former Army veterans into its ranks.

While Eddie (which is not his real name) says his days of active club involvement are behind him, he's a biker at heart and only put away his motorcycle chopper when it became impossible for him to ride on two wheels anymore. He rides a three-wheel Chopper "trike" now, and that's how we were first introduced.

I first met Eddie in August 2012 through my stepsister and her fiancé, whom we'll call Doug. Doug owns a mountainside motorcycle shop where Eddie had his trike designed. My stepsister was raised by a senior executive in Palo Alto and was a minor celebrity in the 1970s California drug scene. Somewhere between then and now Eddie "adopted" my stepsister as her "Biker dad," as she explains it.

In the years Doug and my stepsister have known Eddie, nothing he said raised any doubt that the man is who he claims. Doug tells me that week-long parties at Eddie's place with "old-school, patch-bearing motherf------ all hanging out" have only added to his credibility. (Doug noted that patches themselves are never worn at parties like this to avoid conflict among rival groups, but he knew members from previous meetings.)

Eddie is around six-feet tall, covered in tattoos from his neck down, with white hair all over his head and face that creates a striking Santa Clause impression if Santa were a heavy tobacco user and had a slightly nicotine-stained mustache and beard.

He fits the biker persona most would expect, wearing dirty and oil-stained slicks (pants) that repel more water the dirtier they are. "Slicks are also what a lazy-ass biker wears when he doesn't wanna do his laundry," Doug later explains.

And Eddie's armed.

Somewhere in the folds of his clothing and shoes are reputed to be an untold number of pistols. Maybe that's part of what kept locals from asking what he was doing in the mountains and why he was in seclusion. Later, when locals began to understand who he was and the reputation he had, nobody wanted to know who would have sent Eddie into hiding in the first place.

I asked him myself while visiting his home. "Cause I put my prick where it didn't belong." Not sure if he's being metaphorical, I ask him: "A woman?"

"Yeah, a woman." He says between mouthfuls of cigar smoke. "She was married to the wrong guy and here I am."

Eddie tells me his story, starting with his time as a Naval Seabee toward the start of the Vietnam Conflict. Halfway through his tour in Okinawa he cross-trained to drive a truck and his mechanically slanted future was set.

Following his discharge, Eddie was asked to prospect for the Horsemen, and in 1968 he received his patch when he became one of the first members voted in.

Sharon Smith of the Dallas Motorcycle Lifestyle Examiner, who has lived the biker culture for decades, describes initiation:

A Prospect must do anything a full patch-holder asks him to do. These tasks can range anywhere from chump duties, to more serious activities. It is not the Prospect’s duty to reason why or question anything that is asked. His task is only to prove that there is nothing the brotherhood can’t count on him for. The brotherhood must believe this man would throw himself in front of a bullet, to keep another patch-holder safe. It doesn’t matter whether he particularly likes the patch-holder. He’s not protecting the man; he’s protecting the patch and everything it represents. He must not let the patch fall to the ground. Actually, he doesn’t wear the patch ... the patch wears him.

But not even the patch could protect Eddie from the jilted husband on his trail for more than 20 years, and he only agreed to this story now because the man is no longer after him.

"He died," Eddie explains exposing a wood-grip pistol in a holster beneath his vest.

"How?" I ask.

"Shot," he says. "Not by me, of course, but life of a one percenter is death or prison," he continues. "I've outlived all my biker enemies and the citizens for that matter," he says referring to those not in a motorcycle club.

As he thinks about this, Eddie pulls out a Kel-Tec P3AT .380 pistol from the left front pocket of his slicks. The P3AT is perhaps the lightest and most concealable pistol in the world.

"That is a small pistol," I say, recognizing it. "Not the size of the gun, but where you put the bullet," Eddie replies.

Eddie says he didn't expect to live this long — he just went to his 53rd high school reunion. The years have become precious and he's changing his ways in hopes of sticking around as long as possible.

Eddie's not been well, my stepsister tells me. A lady friend took him to Florida for his birthday last year and after consuming a lot of "powders" he'd been hit by health issues.

He takes Crestor for his cholesterol and a bottle sits on the floor by his feet. "I think that has pot in it," he says bending to pick it up. "No," he says dropping it. "BBs." (For one of the less deadly guns sitting about.)

In response to doctor's orders, Eddie recently quit drinking and partying like he had, sticking to the medical marijuana that he gets from Colorado dispensaries.

He has plenty of understanding about selling drugs too. 

Eddie explains that one percent OMGs like the Horsemen will set up a drug house fronted by a business or residence. If the club can get one production cycle from the drug house and sell its drugs without arrest, it has recovered expenses and turned a minor profit. If the club can escape detection for a second cycle of drug manufacturing and selling, Eddie explains, "That's all profit."

"It was all about pot in the beginning," Eddie says. "But a 50-pound bale of marijuana is about yea big," he says, making a large rectangle with hand gestures. "And pot goes for about $10 a gram."

"Fifty pounds of crank (methamphetamine) is about this big," he says, making a much smaller rectangle with his hands than he made for the equivalent amount of pot. "Meth costs about 30 cents a gram to make," Eddie says.

He doesn't need to explain.

The reason guys on "Breaking Bad" make so much money is because meth sells for about $25 a quarter gram right now on the mountain where Eddie lives, or $100 a gram. PBS reports that it has seen meth sell for up to $330 a gram.

It's something to think about as I notice Eddie's hideout has as much weaponry as a drug house: pistols, bow and arrows, ammunition, knives, swords, a WWI trench knife, and a sawed-off shotgun are strategically strewn about the place.

Taking a photo of his shotgun, Eddie becomes concerned. "Do not show my face or my name," he says again, looking at my stepsister. "This," he says, picking up the sawed-off, "is a 20-year charge."

He debates what law might stick as he explains the age of the weapon and the type of round loaded inside. "At my age I can't afford to do even a nickel," he says, referring to the idea of spending five years in prison.

Eddie reaches down and packs up a homemade pipe designed to hold hash and pot separately but draw them in the same breath. My stepsister and I each have to hold a lighter as Eddie takes a deep drag.

Exhaling and holding the pipe toward me, he says, "This'll knock your dick in the dirt."

I decline and ask to take more pictures. Eddie nods and asks me if I like skulls, explaining there are a case of mammal skulls upstairs and a mannequin called GI Jane that he and visitors dress up in various outfits.

A quick tour upstairs finds another floor of well-organized chaos. Everything from a dozen Polaroid cameras to a 1950s soda machine are wedged between raw timber walls and massive plate glass windows.

GI Jane is there, and a string of photos from a competition where she was the subject are taped over her head to the ceiling.

It seems like a good place for the duo from the History Channel show "American Pickers" to stumble across.

"All of this stuff goes to the club when he dies," my stepsister tells me on the way out. There's a saying that to get a one-percent patch you have to turn your life over to the club. In Eddie's case he's turning over his death, as well.

Back outside swirling black clouds meet over the neighboring canyons as Eddie explains the trajectory for one of his firing ranges.

He shoots across the street into the neighboring hillside with rifles and points to a dangling piece of metal where he shoots his pistols.

An old Ford tractor sits to the side, its seat beneath a red square awning rigged to keep Eddie out of the sun.

"Those clouds," Eddie says in his gravely voice. "Winds come through these canyons and tear them apart. It was like that when I got the place 40 years ago. This is the Angry Acre, and that's why I bought it."

Opening the door to my stepsister's big blue Oldsmobile I ask Eddie if the woman was worth the running and if he would do it again.

"Was it worth it? Hell yeah it was worth it," Eddie says. "And would I do it again? You betcha."

Author's note: Despite the fragmentation between the current Ohio-based Horsemen and the California-based original horsemen whom Eddie said he joined, I inquired about Eddie through the club's current main chapter.

Prior to publishing I sent an email through the IHMC website asking if a club historian might be able to speak to the likelihood of Eddie's tale. An unnamed individual from the club left me a voicemail after this story was published, saying the club did not operate with patches at the time Eddie mentions. The voicemail went on to say, "Whoever is feeding you this is bullshitting you. So don't print it."

Unable to verify either version, it's impossible to know which is more truthful, but what is published above is a factual retelling of Eddie's story. Look for our upcoming piece on mountain survivalists for a greater understanding of life in the "high country" where Eddie lives now.

SEE ALSO: The 13 American gangs keeping the FBI up at night

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When most people think of South Park, they think of the television series with the same name. South Park, Colorado is not actually a town though, but part of a mountain county not far west of Denver.

Park County gets cold, with an average low temperature in the town of Alma, more than 10K feet above sea level, of -23 degrees so far this year.

Southern Park county, "South Park," is also desolate, with only seven people living in any square mile of land, more than 500 times fewer than the number in nearby Denver.

We went to South Park because we heard it was becoming a desirable place for people building survivalist retreats. Turns out that it's true, and the following photos show how building bunkers in the mountains is really just a practical decision.

We went to Southern Park County, Colorado — South Park — in mid-September to see how people known as survivalists were setting up camp for when the federal government falls apart.

South Park feels like a historic Kansas land grab in the center of the Rocky Mountains. People here carve out a niche wherever they choose.

Some people in South Park start building right where they stop.

It's impossible to visit Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) Naval Station and not receive an earful about Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald. The colonel in charge of the prison and the military communication teams at GTMO may find her tenacity causing unexpected work, but if they're annoyed it's tempered by their immense respect for her.

Carol was sitting in the dirt at Camp X-Ray Jan. 11, 2002 as the first round of detainees arrived late in the day. Originally meant to house the countless refugees that pass through base, Camp X-Ray is now deserted and looks much like the temporary confinement facility it was meant to be.

The dirt mounds Carol sat on awaiting that first transport almost a dozen years ago are still there, as are the cells, guard towers, and interrogation sheds.

In fact, it's all there, as it was in late April 2002, when all detainees were moved to a new camp. It's required by law that all previous facilities and documentation remain untouched until trials are complete.

Carol Rosenberg is still there as well, and since August she's been reporting with Google Glass and posting to her blog at the Herald.

Her most recent video of a close-up look at GTMO's morgue-turned-soda-cooler is a result of Rosenberg's selection by Google as one of the 8,000 people to be "Glass Explorers." She paid $1,500 for the privilege of running the new tech through the paces.

Here's the video:

She's been posting on everything from her ferry ride across Guantanamo Bay, to this briefing with a brigadier general, to this most recent post recording how a shipping container with a chilling past has been given a new mission.

But what Google Glass and Carol Rosenberg are really doing in GTMO are testing the limits of the government's policy of secrecy and obfuscation surrounding the upcoming GTMO trials.

Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed's trial is receiving the most scrutiny right now in the ultra-clandestine, CIA-ruled, proceedings. The remote mute button that surprised the senior judge advocate general presiding at motions, as much as anyone else in attendance earlier this year, was just the beginning.

The Sheik's legal proceedings have re-shaped American military jurisprudence and it looks like Rosenberg will continue to meet the government head-on to see what this means at every turn.

Now fully loaded with Google Glass and its on-board video camera, there's no reason to think Carol Rosenberg will do anything soon to endear herself to GTMO command.

When we talked to her in March 2013, Carol was nonplussed by the military's opinion of her and interested only in getting the most accurate details possible out of Cuba.

No reason to think her mission will change anytime soon.

Follow Carol's blog here.

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The U.S. nabbed the Al Qaeda leader believed to be behind the 1998 embassy attacks in Africa on Saturday.

On the same day, a Navy SEAL team raided a house full of Al-Shabab militants two weeks after the terror group's deadly attack on a Nairobi shopping mall.

We think it's safe to say that America's elite — the Navy SEALs — have been keeping busy.

Thanks to Matt Bissonette, a SEAL that was on the Bin Laden raid and wrote the book No Easy Day, we know what they likely brought with them.

In his book, he details getting ready for deployment in Norfolk, Va., when he asks a more experienced SEAL what he should bring. The senior SEAL stopped, looked at his new teammate and said: "Dude, what do you think you need to bring for deployment? Load it ... Bring what you think you need."

The following list is what Bissonnette said, in the book, he needed. 

Helmets like this will stop shrapnel, but have also been known to deflect sniper rounds

Their brain buckets: No matter what, every soldier wears one.

Even the tiniest fragment, the smallest piece of high-velocity hot metal, can enter through soft tissue and puncture your brain—which may often leave fellow troops guessing as to what caused the death.

It's an absolute essential.

Night Vision Goggles that can range in price from about $3,000 all the way to $65,000

Night Vision Goggles are integral to a SEAL's night assault tactics. Being able to see when your enemy cannot is a huge advantage.

Unfortunately, none of us can get our hands on Navy SEAL NVG's, but we can buy declassified, older technology.

If you do buy a pair, just don't try to leave the country with them—we've heard customs doesn't take kindly to transferring such equipment across national borders.

Body armor plates are able to stop up to three AK-47 rounds, but are only guaranteed to stop one

Some SEALs go "slick," and remove their plates, depending on different scenarios.

Factors like how far they're traveling, what kind of mission, etc., SEALs may just not wear them.

In "No Easy Day," Bissonnette says to a buddy: "If I get shot, don't tell my mom I wasn't wearing these plates."

The United States is launching its next generation of aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, Saturday.

The construction of the Ford took place at Newport News Shipbuilding, Virgina.

Along with its groundbreaking architecture and network systems, the carrier is the first ever to use electromagnetic force— the same as in modern roller coasters — to launch jets into flight.

The numbers behind the USS Gerald R. Ford are impressive; about $14 billion in total cost, 224 million pounds, about 25 stories high, 1,106 feet long and 250 feet wide. But the sheer enormity of the ship and construction operation is hard to grasp until you're nearly face-to-metal with the massive military beast.

At Newport News Shipbuilding the power of new technology and 100 years of carrier design is built into every facet of the new ship. The Ford will handle up to 220 takeoffs and landings from its deck every day. Part of that quick turnaround is because when aircraft like the new F-35 return for maintenance, the plane's network will already have alerted ground crews to what's needed so they can get the aircraft on its way faster than ever before.

The new FORD-class aircraft carrier will be the largest, most lethal ship ever when it joins the US fleet in 2016.

The scope of the ship's construction is hard to fathom, but that chain is made up of links weighing 360-pounds each.

It's the weight of the chains that immobilize the 224 million pound carrier, not the anchors like those seen here on the USS Abraham Lincoln.

December 7, 1941 began as a perfect Sunday morning for the troops serving the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Under a early morning South Pacific sun, softball teams were lining up on the beach. Pitchers warmed up their arms, while batting rosters were finalized and the wives and kids came over from seaside church services.

They did not know that for hours the Japanese naval fleet and air forces had been speeding across the ocean toward America's Pacific base. There, like a string of pearls draped across the docks and waterfront, was the majority of America's naval might.

The devastating Japanese onslaught began at 7:48 a.m., eventually killing 2,402 Americans and wounding many others, sinking four battleships and damaging many more.

The Pearl Harbor attack spurred America into World War II, leading ultimately to Allied victory over the Japanese in the East and Nazis and other Axis powers in the West. And the country promised never to forget this day of infamy.

Here are photographs from the attack and its immediate aftermath:

On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, an attack planned by Admiral Isoroku Yamamotoa was carried out to demobilize the US Navy. This picture shows one of more than 180 planes used in the attack.

At 7:00 a.m., an Army radar alert operator spotted the first wave of the Japanese attack force. The officers to whom those reports were relayed did not consider them significant enough to take action. This photo shows an aerial view of Battleship Row in the opening moments of the raid. 

The Japanese aircrews were able to hit most of the American ships on Oahu shortly before 8:00 a.m. Here a Japanese plane flies over Pearl Harbor while black smoke rises from the area. 

The Japanese also took the opportunity to attack military airfields while bombing the fleet anchored in Pearl Harbor. The purpose of these simultaneous attacks was to destroy American planes before they could defensively respond.

There were more than 90 ships anchored in the area that morning. The primary targets were the 8 battleships sitting at Battleship Row in Pearl Harbor. Here is a picture of Battleship Row during the attack.

USS West Virginia (left) pictured here next to USS Tennessee, was one of the first battleships to sink during the attack. The Japanese successfully damaged all 8 battleships. 

At about 8:10 a.m., USS Arizona explodes as the ship's forward ammunition magazine is ignited by a bomb. About half of the total number of Americans killed that day were on this ship. Here is a picture of battleship USS Arizona.

Here is another picture of USS Arizona ... 

Destroyer USS Shaw explodes during the 3-hour Japanese attack. 

There was a short lull in the attack at about 8:30 a.m. The damaged USS Nevada tried to escape down the channel toward the open sea but became a target during a second wave of 170 Japanese planes, hoping to sink her in the channel and block the narrow entrance to Pearl Harbor. The ship was grounded with 60 killed on board.

A Japanese plane dives into flames after it was hit by American naval antiaircraft fire. Fewer than 30 Japanese planes were lost in the attack. 

About 188 American planes were destroyed and another 159 were damaged. Here is a picture of some planes left on Hickam Field near Pearl Harbor. 

Sailors at the Naval Air Station in Kaneohe, Hawaii, attempt to salvage a burning PBY Catalina in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. 

People in Times Square, New York buy newspapers with headlines saying, "Japs Attack US." American entered the Second World War after the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

Salvage work begins on destroyers USS Cassin and the USS Downes. The Japanese failed to damage any American aircraft carriers, which were surprisingly absent from the harbor. 

A Japanese torpedo plane is hoisted from the bottom of the sea. About 10 percent of Japanese planes were lost on December 7th.

USS Oklahoma, seen in this photo with one of its propellers peeking out of the water, was considered too old to be worth repairing.

A Marine holds a piece of shrapnel removed from his arm following the attack. 

This photo shows sailors participating in a memorial service for the more than 2,400 killed in the attack. 

SEE ALSO: 'We were lucky': Pearl Harbor vet describes how he survived the infamous attack

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It's hard to know what to expect from a NYC snowstorm, with all the buildup and warnings flying about the city before the first flake falls.

Yesterday was no different as New Yorkers braced for snowstorm Hercules. All things considered it could have been much worse, and was much worse in parts of Massachusetts, but it was bitterly cold and still snowing during the rush hour commute.

Business Insider headed out in the cold to see what the streets were like and, as usual, we were pleasantly surprised.

As two fronts collided in New York City overnight, this was the scene at about 5:30 a.m. Friday morning at 207th Street in the Bronx.

At this hour, most trains seemed to be running on time, though local residents looked for more creative ways to take their morning commute.

Downtown around 14th Street at Union Square, the morning was quiet and cold with few people about.

The circumstances by which Hawaii was annexed by the U.S. are so sketchy that Congress felt obliged to issue an apology in 1993.

It all started 100 years earlier when a group of mostly American businessmen led a paramilitary coup to overthrow Queen Liliʻuokalani. They were passively supported by U.S. Marines who were deployed "to protect American lives and property."

The coup resulted in a new Hawaiian government under the presidency of Sanford Dole, whose cousin would soon start the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, which became Dole Foods.

Although then-U.S. president Grover Cleveland criticized the events in Hawaii, which he had not authorized, his successor, William McKinley, had no problem annexing Hawaii in 1898.

With a history like this, it is not surprising that a Hawaiian sovereignty movement remains committed to reclaiming rights and land for native Hawaiians. While several contenders claim rights to the crown, Dayne Gonsalves of The Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi has taken the movement to regain his peoples' rights and land in Hawaii to a whole new level.

Business Insider spent more than a week in Hawaii with Gonsalves, also known as Ali`i Nui Aleka Aipoalani. He guided us through his kingdom on two islands, explained what his plans were, and how he plans to fight Washington.

Native Hawaiians have watched their land divided up and sold off for over 100 years, but it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

King Kamehameha III divided Hawaii among the monarchy's lesser kings, chiefs, and commoners in the mid-19th century to make sure his people would always have a home in case of invasion.

King Kamehameha's worst fears were decades later when a coup led by foreign businessmen and supported by the U.S. overthrew his descendant, Queen Liliuokalani, in January 1893.

New camps housing Guantanamo detainees are state-of-the art facilities modeled after American medium-security prisons.

The buildings don't last long and are constantly being replaced, but the first camp, Camp X-Ray, is the one everyone thinks of when they imagine the abuse suffered by Guantanamo detainees.

Business Insider spent one very hot afternoon exploring the now-abandoned Camp X-Ray in 2013.

We knew it would be intense, but that doesn't really describe visiting the place where America's reputation was sullied forever. Even overgrown with grass on a beautiful island, it's impossible to see past the dark history of what happened here.

Guantanamo Bay Naval Station has been a U.S. military base for more than a century. During the 40 years leading to September 11, 2001, it was filled with asylum-seeking refugees from throughout the Caribbean.

After 9/11 Guantanamo turned its attention to prisoners of America's new War on Terror.

When it opened in January 2002, the DoD said Camp X-Ray would temporarily shelter "the most dangerous, best-trained, vicious killers on the face of the earth."

Even as the water slowly comes back on, people living near the Freedom Industrial chemical spill affecting Charleston, W.V. are very uneasy.

Thirty-nine percent of 300,000 West Virginia American Water residential customers affected by the spill had been cleared to use their taps on Tuesday after nearly a week without water.

Contact with the water tainted by 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, a solvent used to rinse coal, can cause cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, diarrhea, rashes and reddened skin. A total of 231 people visited emergency rooms with symptoms, and 14 were admitted, officials told Reuters.

As we drove into Charleston and listened to radio reports from local residents, a DJ segued into the song "Stuck Like Glue," and said, "No, that's not supposed to be coming from your tap."

Despite reassurances from the water company that some of the local tap water is safe, locals are concerned. We met Lisa at a gas station. She finally showered after four days, but refuses to let her kids under the water. "It's scary," she said. "You don't know what's in there. It's not a fun feeling."

At the register, a man said, "people are saying they have blue gunk coming from their faucets and a friend of mine went to the hospital for chemical burns."

MCHM-tainted water is clear, but perhaps something blue was used while cleaning up the spill. No one we met had actually seen the blue gunk, though everyone had heard of it.

The shift nurse at the Emergency Room, Brandon, said people were coming in with complaints, but that there have been no chemical burns. "A lot of skin irritations, nausea, and dehydration," he told us Tuesday evening, but that's about it.

Restaurants are finally opening back up since being told to turn their water off last week. "We're still using bottled water," one pizza shop owner told us, though he declined to give his name. "Our ice still has that licorice smell, and the fountain soda ... people been complaining about that too."

At a local drug store one young employee told us his wife had given birth the morning of the water ban in the hospital. "It's been a lot of baby wipes," he said. "But it's taking longer for her to heal, ya know, because there's no way to clean with no water."

We took his picture and his name, but within moments of talking to him the store manager called us. "If you use the photo or mention the employee's name, he will be fired."

They don't call this area "Chemical Valley" for nothing. With local plants operated by DuPont & Co., Dow Chemical Co., and Bayer AG, as well as Freedom, chemicals play a major role in the regional economy. The related coal industry is even more important for West Virginia. For many people, that economic incentive is enough for them to look the other way in yet another environmental crisis.

SEE ALSO: We know surprisingly little about MCMH

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Former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Adrian Wright's small BBQ joint on the west side of Charleston, West Virginia remained closed Thursday as he awaited the all clear to re-open. The only sound in his place was the TV in the background where CNN reported on the Chris Christie scandal.

Wright asked a question we heard more than once Thursday, one week after the Freedom Industrial chemical spill here was announced to the public. "Why is the rest of the country fixated on a New Jersey traffic jam while we go without clean water? We've been closed five days, I don't know how I'll get past this. The bills still come."

Pastor Dunn of the Charleston First Baptist Church normally sees more than 12,000 people each weekend, this past week, he saw 4,000.

"This is gonna hurt. Kids still aren't in school, and in my district the breakfast and lunch they get Monday through Friday are sometimes the only meals they're guaranteed all week."

Pastor Dunn says his secretary came in three days before the chemical spill was announced to the public, saying she smelled a black licorice odor. Of course, Thursday Freedom Industries announced they'd allowed about 7,500 gallons of the toxic chemical MCHM into the Elk River just upstream from the local water processing plant.

Many people here live paycheck to paycheck and with restaurants and other places of employment shut down until the crisis abates, some people aren't bringing home any money.

One woman taking care of three small grandchildren in a hollow outside of town had run out of water. She'd bought all she could, but as the weekend approached and temperatures promise to drop, she had no money left for kerosene to heat her home. Her husband passed away in November and his old Dodge Caravan wasn't as reliable as it had been when he was around.

We joined a local cab driver who is running for elected office who brought her water and gave her some money for fuel. "It's just so embarrassing," she said, declining to give her name.

Not a single person we talked to trusted their water and some people had more reason than others. Musician Chris Tanzey and his girlfriend Katherine Saul live in an apartment complex on a hill outside Charleston. Katherine is pregnant with twins and had been using the water before she heard the warnings. "I was sick all day Friday, puking," she said. 

Tanzey flushed his water as instructed by the water company. "The cold water was fine, he said. "But when I ran the hot water and the steam started, it smelled like a Twizzler factory in there." 

We were with a scientist to collect tap water samples.

"I had the worst headache of my entire life," Tanzey said. He pointed to Katherine, "She works at Olive Garden and the dish machine still smells like licorice," she nodded as he continued.

"I can't believe they actually contaminated public drinking water," Tanzey sighed. "I never thought it would happen and I won't trust the water again for a very long time." At the time of this writing, Friday morning, a public advisory advising pregnant women to drink only  bottled water has been put in place.People here are taking the situation one day at a time. They live in a place called "Chemical Valley." This isn't the worst scare the residents here have ever had, and they know it won't be the last.

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Even reporting on water tainted by a chemical spill near Charleston, W.V., it's easy to forget to stay away from the faucets. With just one bottle of water to drink, I brushed my teeth using tap water. The sink filled quickly and this was left behind 60 minutes later after it slowly drained.

SEE ALSO: West Virginians are losing money and getting sick

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Driving around the hollows of West Virginia with local resident and activist Paul Corbit Brown and listening to his stories, it's easy to imagine the man is a bit paranoid. 

Can it be possible a group of miners chased him and his girlfriend more than thirty miles one night, trying to force them off the side of the road to get at Brown for what they saw as the threat he posed to their jobs?

Did he really sit parked on the street one night talking when a man with a pistol in his belt opened his coat and told Brown he'd f------ kill him if he lost his job?

And did someone really pump five shots from a high-powered rifle into the front of his house following a town hall meeting one night, not caring if they killed the people inside?

It all seems a bit much. So, when he says we're being followed by a coal company employee in a pickup truck I'm not sure what to believe, so I snap a picture of the guy. Almost instantly the truck fades into the road dust behind us.

As if he were reading my mind, Brown says, "Do you still think I'm paranoid?"

Brown was taking us to the one spot in a mountaintop coal removal area that the public could access. A small unkept cemetery at the top of an impossible steep hill.

From up there we could see dump trucks in the distance rebuilding the mountain that miners had blown apart pulling out veins of coal. 

 It turns out that a lot of the things supposed to be true about West Virginians actually are true. Making moonshine is a legacy passed on through the generations, families and neighbors here take care of their own, and many, many people survive by working the coal mines.

Whole towns were built over the centuries to house the men who went in to dig the coal, but where once it took several hundred men underground to do, it now takes a handful of men a fraction of the time by blowing the mountain apart.

It's effective and perhaps safer in the immediate, but mountaintop removal mining is environmentally devastating. Blast by blast and truck by truck, the coal companies haul out the coal. They sift it from the rock and return all the rock where they found it.

Unfortunately when the mountain is restructured it lacks the three feet of top spoil required to host a hardwood forest — the same soil that acts as a sponge when it rains and keeps the Appalachian Valley ecosystem one of the richest in the world.

The mountain is sculpted into steppes and settlement ponds placed descending down the valleys. Like the Canadian oil sand mining, the big questions here involve reclamation and water. Can land bounce back to its orginal state when it's mined like this, and can the mining companies truly be sure the water they're putting back into the environment is safe?

The other thing about West Virginians is that many of them still trust the coal companies. Brown tells us the story of a woman, a mother of two, he interviewed before the coal company bought her house and razed it to the ground. 

Her father worked at the coal company for years and, despite reports of mutated wildlife downstream, she said the coal company would never do anything bad. The only problem she ever had, she said, was once in a while her well water would turn red.

"It turns out," Brown says, "that the woman's water turned red when the chemicals in the ground water built up." We're driving past the flatland where the woman's home stood until a couple years ago. "She'd dump bleach into her well to get rid of the red. Two gallons at a time."

"People here just don't know," he says. "They just don't know."

SEE ALSO: West Virginians are losing money and getting sick after the chemical spill

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After 7,500 gallons of unstudied chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol shut down water around Charleston, West Virginia for a week or more, locals are understandably scared.

At least 317 people sought hospital treatment for symptoms, which may include nausea, vomiting, dizziness, diarrhea, rashes, and reddened skin, and 14 were admitted.

One person turned away was mother Kim Elliot, who rushed her seven-month-old baby to the ER last Thursday night after having bathed him in possibly tainted tap water. 

Elliott said, "The doctor totally ignored the reason I brought my son in there. No one would help me and the one nurse that did show compassion wanted nothing to do with me after getting pulled aside by her supervisor. It's terrifying."

Elliott showed me pictures she'd taken Thursday and brought to the doctor. The baby is bright red and white fingerprints showed on his skin from where she touched him.

As we spoke in the waiting room of the Charleston Women and Children's Hospital, other women piped up and reported symptoms in themselves and their kids. "You have to help us get word out," one woman said. "No one here will lift a finger to help us."

"How can they say the water is clean?"Elliot asked looking at the other woman another woman. "I feel like they're trying to cover everything up." The other woman nodded in agreement.

Elliott also showed me a bottle of water she drew from her tap Friday morning and it's a dark orange color.

"I had to wake my daughter up from another nightmare again last night. She's afraid of anything from the tap now and told me she's never drinking anything but bottled water again," she said.

There is little evidence to support their fears, but they are also hard to deny. There have already been several lawsuits filed against chemical company Freedom Industrial and West Virginia-American Water Co., with the possibility of many more.

Meanwhile when we first spoke to emergency room staff earlier this week, the nurse we spoke to seemed most concerned with potential litigation.

"People wanna get paid," the nurse who gave only his first name, Brandon, said. "We treat everyone, but we can't say what's true and what's not." 

It didn't take long to see what Brandon meant as local television and newspaper advertisements look for individuals and businesses affected by the spill.

Author's note: Kim Elliott had no idea her water was contaminated as there was no public emergency broadcast. Most people found out through the evening news, word-of-mouth, and social media.

SEE ALSO: 'Why Is The Rest Of The Country Fixated On A New Jersey Traffic Jam And We Have No Clean Water?'

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When up to 7,500 gallons of toxic 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) spilled into the Elk River in West Virginia, leaving 300,000 people without tap water for around a week, former miner Joe Stanley was well prepared. He hadn’t been drinking the water for years.

Stanley, 64, worked at West Virginia's Marrowbone Coal Mine from 1981 to 1996. His employer was Massey Energy, the same company responsible for the Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster in 2010 that killed 29 miners and which was bought out in 2011.

Stanley says he lost his job after a conflict with management, when he, as union president, demanded an inquiry into certain chemicals that were being used in the mine. He claims that mine workers, particularly electricians and pinners, were getting sick.

Decades later, the truth is hard to determine; however, we're more interested in his bleak outlook on pollution.

"I watched the coal industry poison our water for years. Now they're telling us not to drink the water? We've been dumping this stuff into unlined ponds and into old mines for years," he says. "This MCHM was just one of the chemicals we were told was highly toxic but that we dumped into old mine shafts and slurry ponds, and it's been seeping into the groundwater for years."

It sounds bad even before Stanley explains that coal mines are constantly pumped to clear ground water, aquifers, and underground streams: "As soon as we're out of that mine it immediately fills with water. And where does it go from there? I don't know, you're guess is as good as mine."

"I haven't drank the water here in years, and I suggest you do the same," he says, pausing and then reiterating. "Don't drink the water. Just don't do it."

There's plenty of evidence to support Stanley's claims.

An Environmental Protection Agency assessment last year identified 132 cases where coal-fired power plant waste has damaged rivers, streams and lakes, and 123 where it has tainted underground water sources, according to an AP investigation by Dina Cappiello and Seth Borenstein. Nearly three quarters of the 1,727 coal mines in the U.S. have not been inspected in five years to see if they are following water pollution laws, according to the same investigation, which cites these and other alarming findings about coal pollution.

Those numbers don't even include pollution by companies in related industries, like Freedom Industries, the chemical company behind this month's spill.

Even West Virginia Governor Earl Ray Tomblin has expressed uncertainty about water quality after the MCHM spill.

“It’s your decision,” Gov. Tomblin told reporters at a press conference on Monday. “If you do not feel comfortable drinking or cooking with this water then use bottled water. I’m not going to say absolutely, 100 percent that everything is safe. But what I can say is if you do not feel comfortable, don’t use it.”

Yet bringing up environmental concerns is a good way to make enemies in coal-dependent West Virginia, as Stanley knows.

"I've had threats, sure," he says. "But I've got some friends and they look out for me."

As an illustration of what he's been up against Stanley grabs a sign that says "SAVE COAL, END THE EPA." A campaign sign for leading local Republican Senate candidate Pat McGeehan, that kind of outlook wins a lot of votes in this region.

SEE ALSO: This woman is terrified about what happened to her baby after exposure to contaminated water

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