Climate Change? Nahhh ...

Not exactly. It's long been the collusion of politicians and developers to build wherever they see fit, which is why homes and businesses burn and rebuild in California wildfire zones, decade after decade after decade. When the Spaniards conquered SoCal, even then they found native tribes building firebreaks to stop wildfires.

 

Fourteen Eastern Kentucky counties have declared a state of emergency. So far, 28 deaths have been attributed to the catastrophic flood. Many more people are still missing.

The region is no stranger to flash floods. Narrow valleys with steep hillsides offer no way for water to dissipate. With nowhere to go, the waters pile higher, leading to floods that can rise quickly in a scrubbing torrent.

But this flood was much worse. In Whitesburg, the water crested six feet higher than the record-breaking flood of 1957, an event older generations still discuss with disbelief 65 years later.

(Whitesburg is the headquarters of the Center for Rural Strategies, which publishes the Daily Yonder. Collins has worked for Rural Strategies for most the organization’s 22-year history.)

The region is also one of the most rural in the U.S., measured by the proportion of population that lives outside urbanized areas. Of the counties that have declared states of emergency, only 10% of the 260,000 residents live in a town of more than 2,500 residents.

The dispersed settlement patterns make relief and recovery difficult.

Tarence Ray is part of a group of self-organized volunteers who have been taking supplies to smaller communities in Letcher and nearby Knott County. He said his informal group has been connecting with others through East Kentucky Mutual Aid.

Small communities outside county seats have been slow to get help in the early days after the flood, he said. State and federal officials are staging larger responses, but Ray said self-organized volunteers have been crucial for near-term acute needs. He and others have been delivering supplies and reporting what they learn to other volunteers.

Ray said Fleming-Neon, a city of about 600 located on tributaries of the North Fork, was one of the hardest-hit communities he saw with his own eyes. Water surged directly through the town, with disastrous results.

“You’ve got cars turned every which way – cars in houses, houses on houses. A whole building was picked up from its foundation. It was unmoored and tilted.”

He said the town government established a temporary headquarters.

“They had set up a makeshift city hall in like a muddy parking lot with a popup tent with a sign that said, ‘City Hall’ spray painted on the side.”

When he offered the supplies in the bed of his pickup, town leaders seemed surprised, Ray said. “No one has been bringing them anything [as of Saturday or Sunday]. There’s some National Guard working on it, but not nearly enough.”

Ray said goods that were most in demand were water, hygiene items like soap and toothbrushes, cleaning supplies, disinfectant, and diapers.

County officials are staging a supply depot at Letcher County Central High School, according to a Facebook post via the county’s weekly newspaper, The Mountain Eagle, the county’s weekly newspaper. A shelter is established at the county’s Extension Service building. …

Like the recovery after Katrina and Rita, restoration in Eastern Kentucky will be a years-long process. It’s unclear how communities that were already living on the margins of the U.S. economy will respond. And it’s unclear whether it’s even safe to start thinking that far into the future.

A few minutes after we published the first version of this story, Ray sent a text. For some areas, the floods had returned.

“Neon and that area, as well as parts of Knott [County], started flooding again this morning [August 1],” he wrote.

And more rain is in the forecast.

For information on how to help, visit Appalshop’s website.
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Rebuilding is probably unwise.

Relocate these people where there is a solar panel factory and build them a home and give them a job. Not cost.

I’d rather bail these people out than keep subsidizing big oil.

 

My friend lives in Talent, Ore., east of the Cascades about 160 miles from the coast along the border with California. First they had a week of 100+ temperatures, now for the second year in a row there's a monster wildfire at his back door.

 

Fire and floods are not necessarily predictable, but the susceptibility is self-evident.

A big forest fire should clear the fuel out for another big one for another 30 years at least (although brush and grass fires are always a worry).

With floods, that big water stain on your second floor should be a big honking indicator to GTFO before you have to pay because chances are you're uninsurable and will lose your nut.

 

Twenty-four years in this house, have always had a dry cellar (there's a utility storm drain in the backyard, which helps). During Ida found two wet spots in the carpet as the water table rose.

And yes, your insurancer carrier will drop you like a wet potato if you make too many water claims.

Like three. Or two.

 

California is meant to burn on the regular. Plants and trees sort of depend on a regular clearing out of accumulated stuff. We have made the mistake of putting the kibosh on natural fires so now big fires get bigger. Government says they like the idea of setting prescribed burns, but are terrified of liability of one gets out of hand. There are native tribes who did this for hundreds of years and want to help, but the government—until recently—has been saying no.

The sad thing is, if we had regular rain in Cali we'd be done with these major fires in a few years after we get rid of the layers of accumulated stuff that should have been burned a long time ago. But as the temps get hotter and the drought lingers, California will be nothing but burning grass as the trees die and fuel the continuing fires.

As for development, rich people love to live up in the woods or up in the hills for the views. And as we sprawl outward, it just gets worse. We need to keep fighting the fires because there are more populated areas to defend and we can't get some of this out of our systems. And communities take it as a point of pride to rebuild rather than taking the hint. The massive one up in Chico area (someone correct me, was that the Paradise fire?) should have ended that city, but they have to be (insert your town here) strong and defy logic.

 

Having lived half of my life out there, I recognize the inherent dangers of jamming 40 million people in between very mountainous, very combustible, very drought susceptible terrain. Any town could be the next Santa Rosa. Or the Oakland hills, for that matter.

At the same time, the 2016 fire in Gatlinburg really opened up my eyes to the fact that my little neighborhood here in northeast Georgia is woefully unprepared if a similar situation occurs.

We have a volunteer fire department, no fire hydrants within two miles, decades of dead undergrowth and wood-frame cabins. Oh, and only one entrance in and out. I've talked with the county fire marshal about having a controlled burn on my property but I'd need the entire homeowners association to agree.

So at the first hint of smoke, we're grabbing the rabbit, the wedding photos and the keys to the motorhome.

 

If a drought has lasted 20 years, is it still a drought? Or is it just “normal”?

 

The definition of drought is prolonged period of lower than usual rain. To get to normal (past prolonged normal) I think we call it desert. Colorado Rockies are not meant to be desert.