Thursday, September 01, 2005
New Orleans
I truly feel sorry for the people stranded in New Orleans after the Hurricane. It has to be about the lowest point in anyone's life to have a major loss like your home and everything you own due to a hurricane, fire, or whatever. It's not just the TV, PC, and things like that...they can be replaced. It's the things you have that can't be replaced, and just the fact that you lost your "home". That being said....People have a tendency to live in the path of a natural disaster, whether in a city below sea level by the sea, or along a riverbank of a river that floods every 20 years. When it happens, don't be blaming the Mayor, FEMA, the President, and Paris Hilton...the blame lies on the person who decided to live there.
I came across the following story from the Washington Post a few days ago. Being from the area (Lynchburg is just south of Nelson County) I remember the flooding, and you can still see today the devasting effects it had on the land (I used to trout fish the area). When it says it hosed away entire mountainsides, it means that the entire top layer of soil became so saturated that it gave way and slid off the mountain. Trees, boulders, everything. It wiped out a small town along the Tye river in the middle of the night.
Those of us who lived though Hurricane Camille will never forget it. Camille struck with the force of several hydrogen bombs, altering forever the topography of the Mississippi coast. Its nearly 200-mph winds and 25-foot storm surge exploded concrete buildings and erased entire communities -- then gouged open graveyards and hung corpses in the live oaks like so much Spanish moss. There was a problem for a time telling the storm victims from those already embalmed.
More than 250 were dead before Camille swept up the Mississippi Valley as a tropical storm. Then, three days and 1,000 miles after it hit the coast, it took a right turn over West Virginia and, in some sort of terrifying meteorological joke, dumped 20 to 40 inches of rain in eight hours on Nelson County, Va., hosing away entire mountainsides, drowning or burying 150 more people and touching off 100-year-record floods in the James River basin.
I came across the following story from the Washington Post a few days ago. Being from the area (Lynchburg is just south of Nelson County) I remember the flooding, and you can still see today the devasting effects it had on the land (I used to trout fish the area). When it says it hosed away entire mountainsides, it means that the entire top layer of soil became so saturated that it gave way and slid off the mountain. Trees, boulders, everything. It wiped out a small town along the Tye river in the middle of the night.
Those of us who lived though Hurricane Camille will never forget it. Camille struck with the force of several hydrogen bombs, altering forever the topography of the Mississippi coast. Its nearly 200-mph winds and 25-foot storm surge exploded concrete buildings and erased entire communities -- then gouged open graveyards and hung corpses in the live oaks like so much Spanish moss. There was a problem for a time telling the storm victims from those already embalmed.
More than 250 were dead before Camille swept up the Mississippi Valley as a tropical storm. Then, three days and 1,000 miles after it hit the coast, it took a right turn over West Virginia and, in some sort of terrifying meteorological joke, dumped 20 to 40 inches of rain in eight hours on Nelson County, Va., hosing away entire mountainsides, drowning or burying 150 more people and touching off 100-year-record floods in the James River basin.
Comments:
<< Home
My brother and his family moved from the Bay Area to Tampa, FL less then a year ago. They love the house and neighborhood. But, after two near misses from hurricanes this summer, they've thankfully come to their senses and have now put their house on the market and are looking for a new home in New Mexico.
It amazes me that so many people continue to move to Florida, fully knowing the high probability for damage they risk.
Yeah, we have earthquake dangers on the Pacific coast, but it isn't a constant, annual event.
Post a Comment
It amazes me that so many people continue to move to Florida, fully knowing the high probability for damage they risk.
Yeah, we have earthquake dangers on the Pacific coast, but it isn't a constant, annual event.
<< Home
