Midwestern floods

Do we have anyone in direct line up there? Teri Jones, I know you used to live and teach very close, are you in the safe zone now?

Please check in, all those in or near the danger zone, we care.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

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Olwyn Mary
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We're currently up on a high ridge so we are not affected; but many others have lost everything... again. In '93, a "dry creek" behind our (old) house turned into a raging river. We watched as people's sheds, lawn furniture, dog houses, boulders and huge uprooted trees went crashing down this torrent like they were items from a doll house. The "dry" creek tripled in depth and doubled in width. We got to hell out of there.

Here, by the mid-Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, industrial (mostly) and other development have destroyed all the wetlands that previously acted as a buffer against seasonal flooding, harboring all manner of beautiful creatures. And as dams and levees are added upstream, the flooding is worsened downstream as people in Louisiana and Mississippi well know.

Phae

Reply to
Phaedrine Stonebridge

And where there is not industrial development upriver, the farmers either plant crops or graze animals right up to the water's edge, and the runoff of over-generous chemical fertilizers or animal manure all comes downriver, and causes the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

p.s. our wetlands have mostly been destroyed by canals etc. dug to facilitate the oilfields and the oil pipes, plus cutting down the cypresses and the mangroves.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

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Olwyn Mary

So much damage because of oil. Here is a great article I happened across while looking for a recipe (of all things). Among other interesting things, they describe how dependent industrial farming is on petrochemicals and how all that corn, that Iowa farmers planted to reap the subsidies for ethanol, is now rotting under all the Iowa floods. How much has the face of American food production changed from that idyllic small family farm. :(

Reply to
Phaedrine Stonebridge

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