New Mother Nature (Page 3 of 8)

Yesterday my Son's golf team played their city rival across the Ohio River in Henderson, Kentucky.  It was the first time in awhile we'd been over the bridge and I've never in my 40+ years seen the river so high.  This morning I read where the Army Corps of Engineers are dynamiting levees near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to ease swelling.  Here's an excerpt of the news....

WYATT, Mo. (AP) — The dramatic, late-night demolition of a huge earthen levee sent chocolate-colored floodwaters pouring onto thousands of acres of Missouri farmland Tuesday, easing the threat to a tiny Illinois town being menaced by the Mississippi River.

But the blast near Cairo, Ill., did nothing to ease the risk of more trouble downstream, where the mighty river is expected to rise to its highest levels since the 1920s in some parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"We're making a lot of unfortunate history here in Mississippi in April and May," said Jeff Rent, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. "We had the historic tornados, and now this could be a historic event."

The Army Corps of Engineers was considering making similar use of other "floodways" — enormous basins surrounded by giant levees that can be opened to divert floodwaters.

A staccato series of explosions lit up the night sky Monday over the Mississippi with orange flashes and opened a massive hole in the Birds Point levee. A wall of water up to 15 feet high swiftly filled corn, soybean and wheat fields in southeast Missouri.

Upstream at Cairo, which sits precariously at the confluence of the swollen Mississippi and Ohio rivers, preliminary readings suggested the explosion worked.

But across the river, clearing skies gave a heartbreaking view of the inundation triggered by the demolition. The torrent swamped an estimated 200 square miles, washing away crop prospects for this year and damaging or destroying as many as 100 homes.

Curby wrote:

Yesterday my Son's golf team played their city rival across the Ohio River in Henderson, Kentucky.  It was the first time in awhile we'd been over the bridge and I've never in my 40+ years seen the river so high.  This morning I read where the Army Corps of Engineers are dynamiting levees near the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to ease swelling.  Here's an excerpt of the news....

WYATT, Mo. (AP) — The dramatic, late-night demolition of a huge earthen levee sent chocolate-colored floodwaters pouring onto thousands of acres of Missouri farmland Tuesday, easing the threat to a tiny Illinois town being menaced by the Mississippi River.

But the blast near Cairo, Ill., did nothing to ease the risk of more trouble downstream, where the mighty river is expected to rise to its highest levels since the 1920s in some parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"We're making a lot of unfortunate history here in Mississippi in April and May," said Jeff Rent, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. "We had the historic tornados, and now this could be a historic event."

The Army Corps of Engineers was considering making similar use of other "floodways" — enormous basins surrounded by giant levees that can be opened to divert floodwaters.

A staccato series of explosions lit up the night sky Monday over the Mississippi with orange flashes and opened a massive hole in the Birds Point levee. A wall of water up to 15 feet high swiftly filled corn, soybean and wheat fields in southeast Missouri.

Upstream at Cairo, which sits precariously at the confluence of the swollen Mississippi and Ohio rivers, preliminary readings suggested the explosion worked.

But across the river, clearing skies gave a heartbreaking view of the inundation triggered by the demolition. The torrent swamped an estimated 200 square miles, washing away crop prospects for this year and damaging or destroying as many as 100 homes.

Living in Louisiana and being well acquainted with (via reading & hearing stories from my parents, who were just children) the 1927 Mississippi River flood, I am always following this story Curby.  I started being concerned back in the winter with the massive snowfalls and anticipating the spring runoff but these recent storms magnify it to the extent they are saying it will be worse than the 1927 flood, when parts of southern Louisiana were sacrificed to save New Orleans.  My grandfather (long deceased) was in the National Guard and late in his life was having flashbacks to walking the levees in New Orleans during this epic flood and sandbagging to try to prevent the flooding.

The land on the West side of the Mississippi (Arkansas, Louisiana) is so flat (cotton, soybean, etc. farming) that flooding downstream from Cairo & Missouri will also affect not only the farmlands but likely will reach towns and cities a great distance from the river (where I have family --- I live on the West side of Louisiana and there are some hills in between so not sure how/if we will be affected).  There will surely be a lot more destruction & loss in our near future.

If there are other history readers on the forum, the book Rising Tide by John Barry is a very interesting account of the 1927 flood.  It looks at the wisdom of the levee systems and how they will hold up for the future in addition to recounting the flood and putting it all in historical context.

Oh, meant to ask, Curby, how did your son's golf tournament go?

We're watching close as well.  My youngest daughter attends LSU and has an appartment not far from campus.  Already told her to move couch/TV, etc that she can to her upstairs bedroom as a precaution (which she probably won't do) but advice given to her anyway.

Local Baton Rouge Newspaper website has pretty good coverage that I'm following:   www.2theadvocate.com

Brack wrote:

An odd thing happened yesterday.... coincidence ?

Spain earthquake: Rome earthquake rumour sparks mass exodus
As the earthquake hit Spain, one in five residents of Rome stayed off work and children were kept out of school over earthquake fears following a 1915 prediction by seismologist Raffaele Bendandi that "the big one" would strike on May 11, 2011.

Thousands of Romans fled the city and shops were shuttered over quake fears, despite officials insisting they cannot be predicted and special programmes running on Italian state TV calling for calm.
"I'm going to tell the boss I've got a medical appointment and take the day off," said barman Fabio Mengarelli. "If I have to die, I want to die with my wife and kids, and masses of people will do the same as me."

Over 20 tremors did strike Italy on Wednesday, but it was in Spain, around 800 miles to the west, that a devastating quake struck.
Bendandi is said to have predicted several earthquakes which hit Italy during the last hundred years before his death in 1979 and the panic on Wednesday was fanned by Facebook, Twitter and text messages.

Bendandi believed movement of plates and therefore earthquakes were the result of the combined movements of the planets, the moon and the sun and perfectly predictable.

Source: The Telegraph

..coincidence?... interesting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY-roYPKWIE 

I try to keep an open mind ..... remember, we live on this big old rock which is spinning and is constantly moving, It's mother nature, $hit is going to happen - there is no bigger force - go with the flow...