Hopeless Hurricanes

Why? Why now? Hurricanes are supposed to happen rarely and in exotic places not here and now in largely populated places. Maria who devastated Puerto Rico was the first category 4 hurricane to make a direct hit in 85 years. Harvey was the most ferocious rain storm ever recorded in the United States. Storms are not rare but the intensity of recent storms is rare. We just experienced two category 5 storms within a month. Why? Was this a fluke or what we are to expect each time in our future?

Even if no one physically dies in these storms what does die is our precious memories proven in our belongings. The photographs, old videos, possessions and simple things that we treasure that remind us of the people we loved and the good or bad times we experienced. Maybe a hurricane that destroys our lives as we know it is some sort of blessing or cleansing that rips our reminders of the past and present from us. All we have left is our unstable future.

If your house didn’t get blown apart you can have a water flood line that reaches to more than 6 feet inside your home. In Houston, Texas 80 people were killed and it is estimated that more than 27,000 homes were destroyed. Trump lowered the budget for scientific research and planning but thank goodness we still have experts in the field wanting a job. Atmospherics scientists say that our planet is very different today than it was 50 or 60 years ago. The oceans of 2017 is on track to be the 3^rd warmest ever recorded. Warmer water intensifies hurricanes. In a warmer world more water evaporates into the atmosphere. So, when a storm like a hurricane comes along, there is so much water vapor sitting up in the air giving fuel for a hurricane to sweep up and dump upon us. Now in a matter of hours a strong rain storm can dump 2 feet of water very quickly on us.

Water expands when it is heated and so our sea levels are rising. Most of us could care less about the increased heat. Just crank the air conditioning higher but those air conditioning units give off a lot of heat too. It is like we ignore the outside as long as we are comfortable inside. If we are cold just raise the heat on our oil burning heating devices. So what if the burning of fossil fuels are ruining our natural cold air. The Hubble Telescope has been taking photographs of distant galaxies for decades now and it has not discovered another blue sky planet anywhere. Do you think we need to start to preserve what is left of our fragile existence on this planet? Our leader Trump could care less about science, preservation or peace. He wants more weapons and more polluting coal mines.

The warmer ocean waters is creating havoc confusing fish. Sharks are now swimming close to shores. Whales are washing up on shores swimming in too shallow water. Life giving coral reefs are dying from too warm waters. Homes that are not in flood zones are getting caught up in damaging hurricanes. In Houston people are banding together trying to sue the government. They want to tighten the law to force them to dig detention basins to catch the rain runoff. In Holland, Venice and the Netherlands canals were built to take the water elsewhere and not to collect on city streets and in homes. When will America learn from these places and do something to really prevent the total devastation of neighborhoods?

Our cities have grown by 20% in the past 20 years yet no planning has been done to protect these more populated areas from natural disasters. We need more drainage infrastructure improvements. Our cities are bought and sold by developers and not by preservationists. Our government has a lack of urgency about any of these concerns. Flood control proposals are ignored yet our government will spend millions of dollars on flooded homes. Our reservoirs have not even been updated since the 1940’s. Developers were given permission to build properties in flood zone areas over the past decades. Putting people in harm’s way is a bigger problem than even climate change.

Houston is our nation’s 4^th largest city and it will take a long time for it to dry out. We need more reservoirs and less golf courses. Try telling that to Trump who spends millions of tax payer dollars just to take him to his golf courses he owns of choice. Our past is no guide to our future. We need new plans.