Last week started out with a phone call from my 6 year old nephew, he wanted to warn me of the severe weather that was headed our way (the hurricane that was still spinning in the gulf at this point). It was nice to know that he's concerned about us!
Friday evening that weather finally hit, however the 4.5-5” of rain that we did get didn’t even make up half of our deficit for the year. It is strange to think that we were so excited about the storm and didn’t want the rain to end, while those who were first hit by it along the coast were feeling the exact opposite. Of course, if I lived in an area that was at/or below sea level, I would be nervous every time that it rained, let alone when a hurricane was on the horizon.
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Oh wait, you couldn’t pay me to live in an area that was at or below sea level or in a low area that was prone to flooding. Sure New Orleans, Biloxi and other coastal cities are necessary hubs for shipping/commerce and they are beautiful to visit (well, I wouldn’t use the word beautiful to describe New Orleans, mainly because the streets in the quarter always seems to reek of stale beer and vomit), but I would never live on the coast. I still don’t understand why people constantly (and unnecessarily) put themselves and their belongings at risk - and why the rest of us have to pay higher insurance rates and taxes to bail them out every time a storm hits. If you need a man-made structure to hold back potential flood waters from your neighborhood, perhaps you are living in an area that shouldn’t be inhabited? Last time New Orleans got hammered, I argued with friends that while the commercial/historic areas could/should be restored, I think that the majority of the residential areas (and their residents) should be relocated to higher ground and not restored in their current locations. It is only a matter of time before the area gets hammered again, why do we keep constantly rebuilding? It is just wasteful – a waste of natural resources, money, materials, and labor. Here we are years later and now many areas are flooded again...
We toured New Orleans last fall after our cruise vacation, it was amazing to see that damage from Katrina was still visible and how much effort people had put into rebuilding houses that STILL weren’t taking into account what just happened to them. Most of the houses were still built at grade, not elevated over potential flood waters. Did they not learn anything from what just happened? The levy didn’t hold last time, do you really, really, really think that it won’t fail again? I was very surprised that they didn’t at least take a page from the east coast beach house builder’s handbook, which says that you should elevate your structure on piers to allow flood waters to pass under it. We’re not building rockets here people; we just need to apply some common sense if you are going to build in an area that is prone to flooding.
Before being developed, the outlying coastal areas were marshes, sand bars and islands. These natural barriers are excellent at absorbing the initial blow and tidal waves from storms, protecting the inland areas. Even though I am in a design field that seems to constantly develop and reshape the ground, I fully understand that no matter how much engineering thought and design goes into it, sometimes man just can’t compete with nature. Sometimes you just need to call a hole in the ground a hole in the ground and not encourage over 300,000 people to live there.
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Other than the rain, our Labor Day weekend was uneventful. We went out for pizza with friends Friday night, followed by running errands and watching football (and the rain) on Saturday. I am happy to say that all four of our teams (University of Georgia, University of Virginia, James Madison and Illinois State University) all started out with wins. It was nice to be able to write a W down for each team on the 4 team schedule spreadsheet that I printed out and stuck on the refrigerator. Yes, we have so many teams to keep up with that it requires a spreadsheet to know who is playing who when.
On Sunday, I had the fantasy football draft and then we went to a dinner party at one of Karen’s co-workers houses. I think I was able to draft a decent team; hopefully I’ll be in the running to win some money this year. The draft can sometimes be complicated, requiring a lot of info and last second decisions. This year I used a combination of the laptop, ipad and charts that I printed out. Crazy, right?
My fantasy football draft headquarters
My favorite float in the parade was the “don’t beat women” float. My main reason for selecting it was that there were a bunch of “bad ass” looking motorcycle guys on it; they were all wearing their leather vests with their motorcycle club crests on the back while holding hand painted signs that said things like, “hug’em, don’t hit’em” and “real men don’t hit.” While I obviously approve of their message, I just found the whole scene very ironic and humorous. I regret not taking a picture of it with my phone so I could share it with you. Please forgive me. The kids that were standing along the parade route all made out like bandits, as every float/group was throwing out candy to them. The kids in front of us each ended up with a shopping bag full of candy, definitely enough to carry them through until Halloween.
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