Sunday, September 4, 2011

The Piddly Wrath of Lee



Folks down in Lousianna are getting quite a bit of rain from the stalled out Tropical Storm. It's decided to park right on top of them. Texans are reportedly rounding up buckets and driving into the tropical storm in order to survive their own weather phenomenon.


This has been a weird year so far for weather. Drought, heat waves, early frosts, hurricanes, and tropical storms. And do we count earthquakes as weather? I'm unclear on that.


20" of rain in my own area would be a disaster. My basement floods if there's 1" and I've got to run the sump pump almost continously. If we lost power, I'd have to haul out the generator in the rain in order to keep us from flooding out. Modern homes just aren't very sustainable. They require massive inputs of energy to keep warm or to keep cool and the basements require a thick (and expensive) coat of sealant on them every 8 years or so or they leak like a sieve.


As I'm watching news reports of the rain fall in Lousianna, I'm reminded of the old Johnny Cash song "How High is the Water, Momma?" and I wonder how those levees down there are holding out.



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