Hurricane At High Altitude

 Wendall-- every other Thursday

I was born in western North Carolina. My parents both went to college there—that’s where they met. 

 

View of North Carolina mountains from the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 

That's mini-me on the far right with my parents and grandparents at a "viewing spot" on the Parkway.

My father’s oldest brother was part of the WPA project that built the Blue Ridge Parkway.

 

 

Construction of the Parkway was part of FDR's New Deal.

When we were kids, half of our vacations away were spent at a series of motels somewhere along that Parkway. We loved Tweetsie Railroad and spent time in Blowing Rock and Cherokee and Asheville. 

 

We took so many rides on this railway attraction.

And watched the faux gunfights in the town.

Then we'd head back to play in the pool in one of the many motels nearby.

My aunt and uncle raised their family in Morganton and many of their children still live there.

 

Downtown Morganton

 

One of my cousins attended Appalachian State University in Boone. Another was a professor there for almost 40 years. 

 

Looking back at Boone, home to Appalachian State University.

 

Another cousin and her family live in Grandfather Mountain. One of the last photos of me and my father was taken on her deck.

 

Me and my Dad at Grandfather Mountain.

 

Currently, my brother and his family, as well as my stepmother, live in southeastern Tennessee, just over the NC border.

 

So my ties to the region are lifelong and strong.

 

Although natural disasters can and do happen anywhere, the shock of a hurricane taking out entire towns and hunks of vital highways at this altitude and so far inland is profound.

 

Asheville, a city of almost 100,000 people, with a vital and thriving arts community, is one of the jewels of the region. Its River Arts District is full of crafts, wineries, and galleries. The area is also home to the Biltmore Estate and Biltmore Village, conceived by Frederick Olmstead and completed in 1905. 

 

Part of the River Arts District.

 

The area is full of murals.

Biltmore Village, completed in 1905.

Both of these areas experienced catastrophic flooding over the weekend.

 

River Arts District on September 28.

Biltmore Village on September 28.

 

And so many roads and bridges are closed or gone that as of this weekend, no one could get in or out of Asheville. 

 

 

Every road or highway in and out of Asheville is closed.

Just one of the major highways.

 

Many smaller towns, like Chimney Rock, are just gone.

 

So many people there have lost absolutely everything, so I wanted to post a link to a list on the region’s NPR site to organizations that are sending aid, in case anyone wants to help or donate.

 

https://www.bpr.org/bpr-news/2024-09-28/list-ways-to-donate-and-help-flood-victims-in-western-north-carolina-after-hurricane-helene

 

--Wendall

Landing in Deep Water And Getting Out Again

Zoë Sharp

In my last blog I talked about the instances of flooding in the UK and touched briefly on the problems it causes. Or, more to the point, the mess it leaves behind. Of course, if you actually find yourself caught up in flooding, the last thing that should be on your mind is how you’re going to get raw sewage out of the living room carpet.

You have far more important things to worry about.

Like not drowning.

In a House

If you’re in a building, unless it’s in direct serious danger of becoming completely submerged, they reckon your chances of survival are far greater if you stay inside.

Turn off the mains electricity and gas.

Close all the doors and windows.

Fill empty containers with drinking water as tap water will quickly become contaminated.

If you’ve had enough prior warning, think about moving sentimentally important items onto tables or to an upper floor. If you haven’t had much warning, leave it. Nobody ever said during a eulogy, “She died trying to save her credenza. It was the way she would have wanted to go…”

Move to the uppermost floor with water, food, spare clothing and flashlights. Also take a ladder with you, if one is needed to access the roof space, just in case the water gets really high.

Soon, we'll all be turning to boat-building as a hobby
Pic courtesy of Pixabay

If you are forced to take the the roof, rope together all the members of your party to the chimney, so no-one is swept away. If no rope is available, use bedsheets or blankets, knotted together.

Near a River

Many flash floods occur near rivers, however small they may appear at other times. At the bottom of our garden in Cumbria was a tiny beck that, most of the year, was barely deep or free-flowing enough to fill a bucket. Then one July it turned into a raging torrent, twenty-five feet wide, that was rolling half-ton boulders along in the current as if they were tennis balls. Its course shifted almost thirty feet sideways in a day.

If you’re near a river, check the height of the bank. Deep ones may indicate a large range of water levels, regardless of the current depth of the water.

Be aware of recent weather conditions and any flood warnings in place in the area. It doesn’t have to be heavy rain. Rapid snow-melt can cause flash flooding at lower levels.

This might be a better way to cross a deep river...
Pic courtesy of Pixabay

Flood plains next to rivers are usually obvious. Look for debris from previous floods, like the high-tide mark on a beach.

Don’t camp too near a river. Many people are swept away every year by ignoring this advice. And although it’s not very relevant to the UK, avoid dry riverbeds, also. There’s usually a good reason they used to be rivers.

In a flooding situation, try not to enter a steep-sided area with few ways out—for you or the water.

Crossing Moving Water

If at all possible, avoid having to do this. If you have no choice, don’t try to use rocks or fallen trees—they may be slippery or loose. It is better to keep your footwear on and wade.

Use a stout branch or stick to probe the riverbed ahead of you. It will also give you a gauge of the depth and be valuable added support.

Cross at the point where the water is moving at its slowest, facing the current. That way, you will not be caught by surprise by debris bearing down on you.

Shift one leg forward and then bring the other one to meet it. Don’t try to take strides as you will quickly become unbalanced, even in what appears to be quite slow-moving water.

If you are worried about the depth of the water and you have any containers that will float, or plastic bags that can be filled with air, tie these to your arms.

Great care has to be taken crossing water where you don't know what's on the bottom.
Pic courtesy of Pixabay

If you need to get a group of people across a river that is deeper, or moving faster, the recommended method is by using a rope circle. The strongest person holds the middle of the rope and crosses the river. Once the first is across, the next person can use the rope as a guide, holding on to one section while those on either bank circulate it to gently bring the person from one side to the other. If the crosser should fall, the two anchors should both walk downstream at a pace approximating the current, while circulating the rope to draw the fallen person towards the bank. Standing firm will only serve to drag them under the water.

If no rope is available, the stout stick method can be used, with the strongest people at the front and rear, and the others between them, holding tight to the one directly in front.

Driving Through Water

Again, if you have the option, don’t do it. You will rarely know the depth of the water you’re about to drive into, and more than axle height (about halfway up the road wheel) will sweep away most vehicles. Even four-by-fours have a maximum wading depth.

Better to get wet than be swept away, so find a good stout stick and test the depth using the method described above before you drive in. 

If you can’t see the exit point, are you really sure you want to go in there anyway?

If you have a tow rope with you, it’s best to attach this to the towing eye before you drive into the water as this will make recovery of the vehicle far easier if it does all go wrong.

Enter the water slowly, in a low gear. As the bottom levels out, increase your speed just enough to create a bow wave, which will have a hollow behind it. This will keep the water away from the engine and electrics. As you near the far bank, reduce your speed so the bow wave does not rebound and swamp the vehicle.

Never drive into water that's deeper than your axles
Pic courtesy of Pixabay

These points have come from a variety of sources, such as HOW TO STAY ALIVE by Bear Grylls, THE WORSE-CASE SCENARIO HANDBOOK by Joshua Piven and David Borgenicht, and THE SURVIVAL MANUAL by Ken Griffiths.

This week’s Word of the Week is percontation, which I picked up from fellow crime author M.W. Craven. It’s a punctuation mark, like a backwards question mark, which first appeared in Henry Cockeram’s ENGLISH DICTIONARIE in 1623. It has become one of the accepted forms used in English to denote an ironic, sarcastic, or rhetorical question. It comes from the Latin percontari, to sound with a punting pole, or to enquire.

Water, Water, Everywhere: Flooding

Zoë Sharp

I’ve just come back from a trip to south Wales (old rather than New) with either the cleanest car bottom ever, or the dirtiest—not sure which!

There was a huge amount of standing water all over the main roads and dual carriageways. And even the A-roads had deep puddles lurking at corners, or full flooded sections in the dips. As for the B-roads, well, I managed to get within about half a mile of my destination before I was confronted with a lake where the road should have been.

As my car is not blessed with the greatest ground clearance in the world, I decided discretion was definitely the greater part of valour. This involved reversing along a watery single-track lane for about 300 yards and finding an alternative route. Mind you, even the navigable way meant driving along several miles of what seemed to be a muddy river bed.

A glance at the UK government Flood Warning Information Service website on Saturday evening shows 106 Flood Alerts in place, meaning flooding is possible and should be prepared for. It also shows 72 Flood Warnings, meaning flooding is expected and immediate action is required.

UK government flood warnings on November 16 2019

According to the figures, there are more than five million people living in areas of the UK vulnerable to flooding every year. They used to talk about such events as happening ‘the first time in living memory’ or ‘once every hundred years’. Now they seem to have become almost annual.

I remember our home being seriously flooded while living on the Lancashire coast as a child. A high spring tide conspired with an onshore gale to send my parents’ brand new car bobbing merrily around the car park. It was not the only victim. An Isle of Man Steam Packet ship called the King Orry IV, broke its mornings and was forced aground further up the Lune estuary. It remained there until the tide level was next high enough to refloat it. 

The 'King Orry IV' forced aground at Conder Green during flooding, 1976

In the UK over recent years, Cumbria, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire, Somerset, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire and even the middle of London have all suffered severe flooding. Here in Derbyshire has been hit, too. The dam at Whaley Bridge—which was holding back an estimated 1.3 million tonnes of water—started to wash away, threatening the nearby town. A woman was swept away at Darley Dale only a few weeks ago after a couple attempted to drive through water that proved too deep for their car.

The flood-damaged dam at Whaley Bridge

In the Don valley of South Yorkshire, devastating floods hit. In the last twelve years, this is the third time some residents have lost everything. Many of them could not afford the increased insurance premiums.

Flooding not only brings straightforward water damage. It can also bring the three ‘S’s—salt, silt and sewage. All of which will prove highly injurious to just about everything unfortunate enough to be soaked in it. That brand new car I mentioned was an insurance write-off at less than a month old.

Recent flooding in Yorkshire
(pic The Guardian)

Quite apart from the disease implications of having everything soaked through in effluent, however diluted, salt water kills electronics, fabrics and prevents buildings drying out without extensive remedial work. Silt ruins just about everything else that wasn’t ruined by the first two factors.

People underestimate moving water in the same way that many underestimate fire. One cubic foot of water weighs 62.43 pounds. Just six inches of fast moving water will knock your feet out from under you. Two feet will sweep away a car. Even elephants at the Nameri game reserve in India have been taken by flash flooding.

According to the National Weather Service in the US, more people are killed by flooding each year than by tornados, hurricanes or lightning. Half those who lose their lives are in vehicles at the time.

Up to a third of bridges which have experienced severe flooding are structurally unsound so that the chances of a vehicle making it to the other side are only 50/50.

Flash floods are usually caused by intense heavy rainfall and can occur at any time of year. Where I lived in the Lake District was flash-flooded in the middle of one July. However, if the ground is frozen or already saturated, or a river is blocked by storm-damaged trees or ice, this type of flooding is almost inevitable.

Increasing urbanisation—building on floodplains—leaves properties in danger of river floods when a river bursts its banks. The clue can often be found in the old English name of the place, however. There is currently a Flood Warning in operation at Fishlake in South Yorkshire.

I have made a mental note never to buy a house anywhere called Waterside Meadows…

This week’s Word of the Week is noyade, meaning an execution by drowning, like the mass executions carried out between November 1793 and February 1794 at Nantes, France, during the Reign of Terror. From the French noyer, to drown, and the Latin necāre, to put to death, from which root we also get necro-.

This week

Lisa asked me to fill in for her today as she is on tour for her newest book, HOUR OF THE RAT.  We all hope that it is very successful.

It has been another strange week in the world, so I thought I would highlight various items that caught my eye.

Nelson Mandela

My hero, Nelson Mandela, is in hospital yet again having been admitted about two weeks ago.  According to South Africa’s President Zuma, Madiba, as Mandela is known, was responding to treatment and is in serious but stable condition.  America’s CBS News, however, reported that Madiba hadn’t opened his eyes for days and that his liver and kidneys were only functioning at 50 percent, and that he had undergone two surgeries.  It also claims that Madiba’s heart had stopped at one stage, and he had to be resuscitated.

A young Mandela - in 1937

A more recent photo

It also came to light this week that the emergency ambulance that was taking Madiba to hospital in the middle of the night two weeks ago broke down en route to the hospital in Pretoria leaving him and his wife stranded for 40 minutes in 45 F (8 C) temperature.

Rapport newspaper reported that Mandela’s close family was deliberating on ““just how much medical intervention was enough for an old and very sick man”.  My cynical side wondered about Michael’s blog of a couple of weeks ago (Don’t live too long . . .) in which he reported that Mandela’s daughters, Zenani and Makaziwe, were in court seeking to get control of their father’s trusts.

[For those of you interested in why Mandela is called Madiba, it is customary to honour someone in South Africa by giving them the name of the clan they belong to.  Mandela is a Xhosa of the Madiba clan.]

Water

It seems that it is raining heavily almost everywhere in the Northern hemisphere.  My newspaper today reported that 4500 people may have died in flooding and landslides resulting from pre-monsoon rains in Northern India and Pakistan.

Rescue worker in India

Shopping is difficult in monsoon season

Calgary in Canada suffered its worst flooding ever, leaving 70,000 people homeless until the floods recede.

Devastating Calgary flooding

More from Calgary

Here in Minneapolis, we had three waves of thunderstorms come through over the past three days, leaving more wind damage than flooding.  Half a million people were left without power, largely due to thousands of trees that were blown over because the soaked soil was unable to hold them up in the face of the high winds.  Fortunately the temperatures were balmy.

Water-logged soil caused trees to fall

And road to collapse

More from Minneapolis

Protests

The civil war in Syria took a backseat to the protests in Turkey that started initially in reaction to the government wanting to develop part of one of Istanbul’s only green spaces, Gezi Park.  There was a lot of water there and in Taksim Square, where police doused protesters with water cannons.  Prime Minister Recep Tayyin Erdogan took a firm stance against the protesters, saying at one stage “Nobody but God will have the power to overthrow our government.”  Several protesters have died in the turmoil.

At least it's not bullets

I hope it wasn't cold outside

Brazil too saw massive protests initially against a hike in bus fares in Sao Paulo.  It rapidly spread across the nation of 195 million into protests against corruption and lack of basic services, as well as anger that so many billions were going to spent on the 2014 Football World Cup and 2018 Olympic Games instead on education and uplifting the poor.

We need more jobs

No caption needed

Millions protest

Tear gas

I fear South Africa could see similar protests when Madiba dies.  

Is it possible that it will pick up the World Cup if Brazil defaults?  After the 2010 World Cup, which it hosted so successfully, it is not out of the question.

World’s oldest embrace

South Africa’s Mail & Guardian newspaper reported this week on what must be the world’s oldest embrace:

“The rain was pouring down as the skies opened up in the Karoo Basin 250-million years ago. An injured amphibian Broomistega, possibly hurt by the storm, crawled into a sleeping animal's burrow to shelter from the violent weather. It is suspected that the mammal-forerunner Thrinaxodon – which, from simulations resembles a furry Komodo dragon – was hibernating, although when done for short periods of time this is called aestivation.

Both animals died, and their fossilised embrace, discovered by South African scientists, marks a world first. “

I, Broomistega, take you, Thrinaxodon, to be my ...

Creationism,

I read something this week that I found quite remarkable.

"Forty-six percent of Americans believe in the creationist view that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.  The prevalence of this creationist view of the origin of humans is essentially unchanged from 30 years ago, when Gallup first asked the question. About a third of Americans believe that humans evolved, but with God's guidance; 15% say humans evolved, but that God had no part in the process."

                                                                                                2012 Gallup poll

Greece closes public television station

In what was called an effort to deal with the budget crisis in Greece, conservative Prime Minister Antonis Samaras decided to close down the Hellenic Broadcast Corporation (ERT). The country’s national broadcast service.

Great poster

The leaders of the other two parties in the government coalition were outraged. 

Protests have taken place against the decision.  Hopefully Jeff can fill in the details.

Lost firearms

Gun dealers in the USA lost 10,915 firearms last year.  So much for responsible gun ownership.

Obama’s African safari

The Telegraph reported last week: “Barack and Michelle Obama have reportedly scrapped a safari during their trip to Africa because of the costs of snipers needed ’to neutralise cheetahs, lions and other animals if they became a threat’.”

I’m delighted.  Who knows what would have happened had a baboon jumped on the game vehicle to pilfer food.

Oh Barack, what am I going to wear?

How I beat Serena Williams at .. tennis

Last Tuesday, as I was checking in for my Delta flight from Heathrow to Minneapolis, I had an interesting experience.  (And, no, it’s not another airline story of woe like Michael’s unbelievable experience last weekend – A Personal Best).  A woman, obviously from Delta, walked up to me and asked if I would like to play table tennis with Serena Williams.  I agreed with great alacrity – after all, Serena is one of the greatest tennis players of all time.  Why would I not want to play against her?  Needless to say, it was a puzzling request.

Apparently Delta was having a big promotion for its new terminal at JFK in New York, from whence Serena had just arrived.  A table tennis table had been set up in the check-in area in Terminal 4 at Heathrow.  There were cameras everywhere, and reporters were buzzing around like mosquitoes on a Minnesota lake to witness the several passengers who had been recruited to compete. 

That's me hidden on the left!

After a brief warm-up, my partner – a talented young woman with a two-fisted backhand (in table tennis?) – and I squared off against Serena and her partner.  The game was somewhat abbreviated I have to admit (best of five points), but my partner and I prevailed 3-1.

Serena waves graciously after losing to my partner and me

As you can see, I am going to make the most of these bragging rights.

Stan for Lisa - Sunday