Some of this paper’s readers incurred serious damage from
the severe storm of May 26-27 and we hope for their speedy recovery.
We, personally, were very fortunate. We didn’t lose a house,
or car, or loved one to the floods. We weren’t hit by one of the twisters that
passed through.
Before the power died, we’d been watching the storm on
radar, somewhat compulsively, I admit. A strange storm, too, the houseguest who
wouldn’t leave. Who just sat back on his haunches and grew bigger, instead of
moving on.
It gave us three tornado warnings, targeting Winedale
specifically, and an aerial bombardment for eight dark hours. I asked my
husband if it felt like war to him. But of course, he’d been in an airplane then,
with flak coming up at him. Not below where the bombs landed.
Some folks are prepared for tornadoes. Some folks have a
basement to retreat to, as the warnings direct. Our house is one room deep. There
are no interior rooms.
Once the power went out and we weren’t able to “see” the
storm on our phone and computer, we were like our dog, Rosie, adrift inside the
flashing darkness, amid roaring rain, with random nearby explosions of sound,
and the smell of worry all around.
At one point in the evening, I caught her, by flashlight,
looking at me with a mournful expression: Why? She seemed to ask. Why all this
falling water and noise? Why won’t it stop?
I suspect it’s a question many of us shared. And we would
like an answer better than: Oh, a cooler mass of air has pushed into warm, wet
air from the Gulf.
That’s a description, not a reason.
Even the official explanation, isn’t sufficient. The
phenomenon was called a “backbuilding mesoscale convective system”, and a
similar one caused last year’s Memorial Day flood. It’s a seasonal occurrence
in our area, according to the weather guys (http://spacecityweather.com/get-20-inches-rain-24-hours).
And this year we had two, back to back.
Funny how, in all our thirty years together in Winedale, and
my husband’s much longer experience in the area, we don’t remember such oscillations
of extreme weather. Nothing remotely so severe. And on the heels of such devastating
drought.
The Texas State Climatologist tells us to expect more of this
kind of thing, but he doesn’t say why.
A few minutes ago, I happened to check the news. The same thing
is happening in France. Yes. The
worst river flooding in more than a century. Slow moving low pressure systems, warm
air colliding with cold upper air. Evacuations. Immortal works of art
threatened. In Germany, several deaths.
So much for thinking local.
But once the larger view is indulged, questions multiply: What
about those polar glaciers, calving at a vastly increased rate? Greenland’s
shrinking ice caps? The unprecedented intensity of heat in India, and drought
in Syria and neighboring countries? Why so many climate-driven disasters all at
once—all over the world—and escalating?
The elephant in the room wears a GOP blanket saying, “I do
not exist.”
But that is fear speaking. And fear makes it very hard to accept
the harsh reality of what we find uncomfortable.
Especially when we can’t see a clear solution to the
problem.
It’s so much simpler to concentrate on repairing washouts,
rebuilding what has been swept away. Even when we know it will all happen again.
Because, hey, maybe it won’t be us, next time. Maybe it’ll be somebody else.
And we hope for that, don’t we—that next time somebody else
will bear the cost?
Which may be the most uncomfortable reality of all.
(This appeared as my June column in the Fayette County Record.)
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