Elaine Meinel Supkis
The flood/drought cycle which has nothing to do with seasons and everything to do with global warming causing yo-yo swings in the climate has, during the last month, dropped a gazillion gallons of water on us after frivolously leaving us high and dry during springtime.
(CNN) -- From upstate New York to the Virginia coast, flooding caused at least 10 deaths Wednesday and forced mass evacuations, including two-thirds of the residents of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and surrounding Luzerne County.Luzerne County officials ordered between 150,000 and 200,000 people to evacuate their homes because of the rising Susquehanna River. The county has about 313,000 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
About 80 miles upstream in Binghamton, New York, the Susquehanna spilled into city streets, covering cars, flooding homes and prompting a mandatory evacuation of as many as 15,000 residents, officials said.
About 30 miles to the northeast, a rising creek washed out a section of Interstate 88 in Sidney, New York, causing wrecks that killed two truckers and closed the highway, state police said.
We had precious little percipitation last winter. Spring was so dry, all our springs dried up. Not a drop of water in them. My fields were dry and getting drier and the sun shone every day. I was afraid we would have to carefully use water this year.
Then the floodgates opened. We had a drought last summer. In August, barely a drop of rain until the end of the month. I had to use winter hay for the horse. Then the floodgates opened. One day in October, normally the dry, harvest month, we had seven inches of rain! The roads around my mountain were washed out.
So this flooding which is mostly coming from the south, is part of the onimous flood/drought cycle which is causing increasing problems for us all. Using yearly statistics is meaningless since the average is probably not very out of line but it is this all or none stuff that is most distressing.
In today's news are people being swept away in Pennsylvania. A friend of my daughter lost her car in floods in Pennsylvania...last fall! The meteorologist in the article said this is a 20 year flood cycle.
It is not! I remember when I lived in New Jersey, some years we had one storm after another, since I have worked outside most of my life, I am exposed to the elements constantly so they make a much bigger impression.
Other years, it seemed like there was no rain at all. One thing I noticed was how the rain would get worse and worse until floods were daily threats and then as if someone turned off the faucet, no rains at all.
In the desert, we have monsoon season which ran from the end of June after the saguaros blossomed to the end of September. In el Nino years, we got lots of winter rains. Now, the monsoon/drought cycle is disrupted there and we see drought for five years and then monthly rains!
As dams threaten to burst and cities flood, it reminds us why we have to pull out the troops from their zillions of expensive bases abroad. The Govenors of various states have to scratch together whatever they can of their National Guard units to rescue people. The Guard isn't for watching our borders or patrolling distant cities. They are for emergencies which is why they were supposed to be part-time jobs!
Worse than all this is our rampant pollution that is fueling this cyclic bad weather. Before this latest storm hit, as I was running around, securing people's homes, the wind was blasting us. Branches were torn off of my poor trees which are just beginning to recover from that insect invasion, the storm from my mountain looked like hurricanes when they blow over us and are 'tropical depressions.' Moving very rapidly north, slowly crawling sideways to the east, this is not like western fronts with cold air behind, those usually move pretty rapidly past. Hours and hours of rain moving north are the causes of many bad floods.
This summer, we are supposed to see most of the hurricanes move up the coast and nail NYC and on up the Hudson Valley.
Time to get a boat.
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