A hurricane prepared for; a flood that can't be avoided

A week after we completed our hurricane prep, the sky is blue, the yard is raked and the fallen limbs are picked up. City sanitation crews have collected our debris and appear to be back on a normal schedule.

Getting the deck furniture, the bird feeders, the wind chimes, the whirligigs and all the rest put away or lashed down was easier this time, the first hurricane since we both were retired. Two can do more than one. I made a quick (but crowded) run to the supermarket for non-perishable food, and we ate well last week as we finished off food from the freezer. We froze water bottles, repurposed juice jars, and food storage bags filled with water. They were never needed.

In 1996 (Fran) and 1999 (Floyd), we had lost hundreds of dollars worth of food when we were without power for more than a week each time. From Fran's devastation and the difficulty of cooking our own food and taking showers, we decided to switch to a natural gas hot water heater and a gas stove. Floyd was more tolerable three years later because we could cook and take showers, even though we had to do it all by battery-powered lights.

Nothing frustrated us more during those '90s hurricanes than being unable to read once the sun went down. A friend offered us a battery-powered lantern that gave off enough light for two people to sit close together and read from the same light source. This year, we invested in book lights — LED lights powered by a watch battery that clip onto a book. I was looking forward to using the book lights, but we never had a need.

The electricity NEVER FAILED. We waited, we worried, we fretted, but the worst never happened. We never lost power, no trees fell on our home. We could see flooded streets a block or more away, but floodwaters never reached our property. We feel incredibly blessed to get through this first major storm this year with so little damage or inconvenience.

Over the weekend, we unhitched the deck furniture and put the pieces in their places; we rehung the bird feeders, and we removed the collection of flashlights and battery-powered lanterns from the kitchen counter.

We're back to normal, but we're mindful of the thousands of others, not so far away, who are dealing with felled trees, loss of power, and flooded homes. We hope and pray that they will recover soon and that government agencies, nonprofits and individual donors will be sufficient to allow them to recover and be happy again.

Each time a hurricane strikes, some will warn that the weather is getting worse because of climate change resulting from human activities, such as burning fossil fuels. I don't know enough about it to blame fossil fuels for these hurricanes, but I can confidently see that man-made activities are causing increased flooding. Just look at the acres and acres of paved blacktop that we have added to our world in the past decade. While older shopping centers sit empty, newer, bigger shopping centers with even more blacktop parking areas are built.

The rain falls on the just and the unjust, the Bible says, but all of the rain that falls has to go somewhere, and all of the rain that falls on blacktop parking areas and on multi-lane highways runs off the blacktop, ultimately reaching small streams that feed mighty rivers. Waterways that could handle the runoff 20 years ago cannot handle the vastly increased runoff of today. The stream beds and creek banks that used to channel the water away can't handle the increased volume.

You don't need a degree in environmental science to see this happening, and to see that we need to find new strategies for reducing runoff before it ends up in somebody's home.

 

If you know about a hurricane, thank the news media

My wife and I have been closely monitoring Hurricane Florence the past several days. We have prepared ourselves and our home as best we could for the winds and rain that are forecast. I've used the weather app on my phone, the Weather Channel and a Raleigh TV station to keep informed about the storm.

During this time, I have heard two people tell me how "newspapers" or "the media" have exaggerated the dangers of the storm. They were both hard-core conservatives who blame "the mainstream media" for most everything they don't like and suspect government officials are deceitful. 

I wasn't going to argue with either of them, but it made me wonder what they thought they would do if there were no "mainstream media" to hire meteorologists, send reporters to impact areas, and provide maps and satellite photos showing where the storm is expected to go and when it is expected to arrive at various locations. Who would warn them of the approach of a dangerous storm so that they could prepare for threatening conditions, such as 100 mph winds or punishing rainfall that causes widespread flooding?

Demagogic politicians create a straw man and whipping boy of the news media, blaming them for misinformation, bias, conspiracy and even, yes, being an "enemy of the people." These critics had better hope they don't succeed in destroying the news media that use their revenue (mostly from advertising) to inform the public about things they need to know. Hurricanes are just one example of things the public needs to know.

Some news media-hating people say they'd still know all about hurricanes, tornadoes, elections, governmental decisions (from the courthouse to Congress), court decisions, crimes, new products and treatments for illnesses, and the availability of inoculations or low-cost medical care. But I doubt they've really looked into that.

News organizations are created to collect information such as this and distribute it to the public. A lot of work goes into just finding that information. Yes, there are governmental websites and some independent websites that post information about some government activities, but it takes a lot of work, especially for the untrained and unfamiliar, to find that information, understand it and pass it along.

I used to tell journalism students that one responsibility of news reporters is to be at the meetings, press conferences and events that voters, most of whom have full-time jobs, do not have the time to follow every meeting, conference or event. Reporters, who work full-time at collecting news, go where subscribers/voters don't have the time or inclination to go. Informing the public is the key responsibility of any news organization. It is what motivates newspaper people.

You don't like the "mainstream media"? OK. Unplug the TV, ignore the news websites on your computer or phone, don't heed the warnings, originated by government officials and passed along by the news media, to evacuate or prepare for the next storm on the horizon. See how that works out.