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Breaking News: No one in their right mind should be out in this weather. Back to you.
The minute the sun peeked out from behind the clouds of Hurricane Florence, the squadrons of idiots who had been standing out in the rain and leaning into the wind in front of television cameras, shoulder to shoulder along the entire Carolina coast, trooped inside and went back to emoting about tweetstorms. (I suppose they are smart enough, really, but my father’s definition of an idiot was someone who did not have the sense to come in out of the rain.) Florence faded from our screens and minds, over and done with, forgotten along with last year’s Harvey, Irma and Maria, along with Matthew from 2017 and all the others.
Forgotten, that is, by all of us whose experience of Florence was vicarious, but not by those whose homes are gone, or soaked to the rafters in foul brown water, not by those whose businesses have been destroyed for the second time in two years (remember Matthew?) or by those whose relatives or friends are gone forever. Not by those who will spend the next several years of their lives living in shelters, filling out forms, trying to get back just to where they were last week.
They haven’t forgotten Maria in Haiti, where electricity and drinking water are still luxuries, where the struggle to repair a million damaged homes continues, a year after everyone else has forgotten. They remember Harvey in Houston, where thousands of people who have not yet made it back into their homes a year after the storm are suffering today what one study labelled “unprecedented psychological distress.” They remember Irma on the Florida Keys and in South Florida where people are still living in trailers and under blue tarps (the temporary roof repair made infamous by Katrina).
These districts of decimated structures and devastated lives are slow-healing wounds that fester for years, as they have in New Orleans and Houston and Puerto Rico and New Jersey, while the strikes, each one seeming more vicious than the last, just keep on coming.
Storms that cause a billion dollars’ worth of damage used to be relatively rare. There had already been six this year in the United States, before Florence. Rough, preliminary estimates of Florence’s vandalism are circling $20 billion.
As I write this, ten days after Florence’s landfall on the North Carolina coast and nearly a week after the TV rain-men and -women shrugged off their slickers and returned to their air conditioned cubicles, one of North Carolina’s rivers is still rising; a mountain of toxic coal ash is washing into the Cape Fear River; and millions of gallons of hog manure from farm-factory lagoons, and human sewage from overwhelmed treatment plants, are spreading across the state. Their malignant effects on people, landscapes and water sources will be felt for many years to come.
As I write this, another tropical wave is spooling up off the coast of Africa, summoning the heat of the oceans and the whirl of the winds to a dance that could well bring down another multi-billion-dollar blow on our beleaguered land. If it does, the TV idiots will troop out into the surf and wind for a few days, then lead us back into forgetfulness and our usual attention-deficit hyperactive news cycles where, like advanced Alzheimer’s patients, we remember nothing, find everything presented to us to be shiny and new, and do not understand that we are dying.
And the atmosphere will increase 100 ppm CO2 within the next 50 years, if not a heck of a lot sooner.
When the deluge has retreated the rising tide of interest rates will continue to advance, rendering the insurance corporation’s investments in high yield junk bonds even less secure.
Next shoe to drop will be that all of our fellows who had built in an X flood zone and had no need for flood insurance will be notified their homeowners insurance does not cover flood damage.
Thoughts and prayers will not cover this one.
Right. Not to mention the fact that FEMA and its National Flood Insurance Program is hopelessly in debt and going deeper….
As a species, we humans would be well advised to rethink some basic assumptions about ourselves and the planet we inhabit. It is quite natural for such a dominant species to proliferate, but another thing altogether to apply our intelligence toward control of that growth. Unfortunately, intelligence does not directly translate into wisdom. But, fortunately for the rest of life on the planet, nature is providing an answer to the problem of too many overly aggressive humans. It periodically is applied to lemmings. Why not us?
This selective discussion of the impact of irreversible climate change in recent times in regions of the USA is undoubtedly a worrisome predicament for some elements of society.However, there are many global regions having this predicament while trying to deal with irrevocable waste management together with declining availability of electrical energy, potable water and food production for a rapidly growing population.
Lest one forget about the recent record wildfire season out west…it seems were a trapped between the two major opposing forces of nature run amok.
I’m reminded of the James Taylor’s lyric, “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain…”
Hi Tom,
My house insurance has been going up every year at about 18% to 19% per year for the past couple of years. A few weeks back I did some numbers and I reckon within 10 years I maybe in the difficult position that I may not be able to afford it. And the interesting thing is that the higher the premiums go, the more people drop off the insurance radar, and then premiums have to go up in order to compensate. It is a circular problem with one end in sight – collapse.
This matter is definitely on my radar and it ain’t good. The original purpose of insurance was to spread risk among the community. In fact it was originally devised not to provide for replacement buildings, but to provide for emergency services (such as fire brigades) in the event of a problem. Old school homes used to display little plaques in prominent locations so that the fire brigades would know whether they should do anything about the fire on that particular property. We’ve somewhat used our access to energy to expand that original purpose.
Cheers
Chris
A priest, a rabbi and Vivaldi walked into a bar. Blind drunk, the priest pulled down his pants and mooned the rabbi. “Oy vey” exclaimed the rabbi as he kicked Father in the ass. Following a bloody melee, the holy duo lay on the barroom floor, rendered unconscious by physical trauma, sheer exhaustion, and booze.
Vivaldi said to the Bartender, “penso che avro’ quello che stanno avendo”.