It’s raining in Iowa and the temperatures have dropped significantly. I’m not supposed to mention that of course, because by comparison, things are much worse along the Mississippi.
This seems to happen periodically, and in the spring.
I imagine it was known to Lewis and Clark, and the Frenchies when they were in control of the river traffic.
If you remember, before aeroplanes and trains, river travel was the fastest thing going, it being determined that most horses could not swim for long pulling a wagon full of goods.
I know that the problems along the FLOOD PLAIN are getting worse because the mainstream media “reporters” have worn higher and higher boots and stood in higher and higher water to demonstrate their solidarity with those folks who are losing EVERYTHING THEY EVER OWNED.
In mulling over this issue, I came to a few pertinent conclusions. So don’t get you knickers in a knot, and yo–back off, while I make a point or two.
As I said, HISTORICALLY man and woman have learned? that rivers, swollen with melted snow, tend to flood a thing called the FLOOD PLAIN. I said that twice for emphasis.
A FLOOD PLAIN is a flat area of land adjacent to a river, composed of river sediment.
See the point is, we can find flood plains easily. When we walk on level ground to the water’s edge, we are on a FLOOD PLAIN. And if it is sandy and has ridges that look like waves lapping against the shore, we can be really quite sure we have found one.
Forgive me if I repeat, but we learned this many moons ago, actually so many that we were still living in caves pretty much.
In our travels around the globe, even when we had yet to know it was a globe, we found this phenomenon pretty much everywhere we found rivers.
So one has to further ruminate and conclude? that it is not really a good idea to build important shit like houses, businesses and so forth in flood plains. Wouldn’t this seem obvious?
Yet we have ignored the obvious. When it comes to a place like poor New Orleans, we ignored even more obvious truths–hurricanes push water from the ocean back against the land, and low-lying flood plains are inundated. You might remember this. I hint: Katrina.
Now all of this stubbornness costs horrific sums of money. And it makes people awfully angry. And the costs are on the front and back end of the naturally occurring flooding. First we spend oodles of money to build dikes and bladders and walls and other crap that works some of the time but will never work when the MOTHER OF ALL FLOODS occur, which they will, given enough time.
Then we pay oodles of money to clean up the mess.
To a sane person, it all makes little or no sense.
I mean, if you want to play the odds that these once per century events won’t occur while you have a vested interest in the flood plain, by all means, do so. But why on the public dime? There are always idiotic insurance companies willing, for a price, to insure your gamble. I mean they did insure Betty Grable’s legs after all didn’t they?
And what of the poor folks who have paid through their local taxes for protective measures only to be told that somebody upstream is gonna open their gates and flood you to save themselves? “We” (nobody asked me) have decided that New Orleans is to be saved, but in order to do that, other communities are being sacrificed.
As far as I can determine, the sacrificial lambs have not consented.
Quite frankly, I don’t know who makes these decisions or claims to have the right to decide with kingly or queenly authority that “you shall die, and you shall live” figuratively speaking that is.
It all leaves me scratching my head in those moments when I’m not exercising the politically correct stance of “oh those poor, poor folks. I am just heartbroken at their loss.” Trust me, most of the time I am being appropriately saddened and sympathetic.
But, people, REALLY! At some point in time, don’t we have to face the facts? FLOOD PLAINS ARE NOT GOOD PLACES TO LIVE AND DO BUSINESS! And if you insist that you want to because it is just so darn purty there, then bring a boat load of money to pay for whatever system will protect you from the onslaught of nature being nature.
Then the media can report “Crazy Ed and Margie Witherspoon, who spent $14 million dollars to protect their mega McMansion, report that they are high and dry and expect to remain that way as the Mighty Miss disgorges mountains of water down to the Gulf. When we return, Jack shows us the results of the latest efforts to give every child a free college education. The world looks to the US for inspiration!”
Have I made my point?
Good.
Related articles
- Mississippi Rising: Man-Made or Mother Nature? (abcnews.go.com)
- Mississippi floods swamp 12,000 acres of crops (cbsnews.com)
- Banks of the Mississippi River (hazimiai.wordpress.com)
- Fairly or Not, U.S. Taxpayers Bear Burden of Flood Costs (abcnews.go.com)
Existential Ennui 