Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

This baby died, they had no patch of land on which to bury her, so they consigned her to the waters....

[Flex Mentallo]

Almighty Father, strong to save, Whose arm hath bound the restless wave, Who bidd'st the mighty ocean deep Its own appointed limits keep: O hear us when we cry to thee For those in peril on the sea. O Christ, the Lord of hill and plain O'er which our traffic runs amain By mountain pass or valley low; Wherever, Lord, thy brethren go, Protect them by thy guarding hand From every peril on the land.

O Spirit, whom the Father sent To spread abroad the firmament; O Wind of heaven, by thy might Save all who dare the eagle's flight, And keep them by thy watchful care From every peril in the air.

[Flex Mentallo]

Also in August, a devastating mudslide destroyed communities in Sierra Leone. A national emergency has been declared after the city suffered heavy flooding, thought to be the worst in Africa over the past two decades. Freetown’s mayor, Sam Gibson, said 270 corpses had been recovered and were “being prepared for burial”, while the chief coroner told Reuters that nearly 400 bodies had been found. Estimates of the numbers missing vary: the Red Cross reported that 600 people have not been traced, while the country’s interior minister has said thousands are unaccounted for. Like most of Freetown, Regent is a mountainous village; the Portuguese explorers who named Sierra Leone derived its name from the mountains: Sera Lyoa - meaning "Lion Mountain".

 

As I approached Regent I saw a massive red opening, part of what is a very green mountain. A huge chunk of Mount Sugar Loaf had caved in.

I was shocked at seeing the way part of the mountain had peeled away. At that moment the number of casualties was not clear.

When I arrived at the scene I could see the houses had disappeared, completely submerged by the mountain rug of red earth that had descended.

Residents, believed to number between 600 and 1,000, lay buried beneath the mudslide.

This is when the magnitude of the disaster dawned on me.

[Flex Mentallo]

The summer rains have been especially heavy in China this year. About 16 million people have been affected by heavy rains that have engulfed vast areas near the Yangtze, have killed at least 150 people, with scores missing and hundreds of thousands forced from homes. Over 50,000 homes were destroyed. It has estimated that more than 1.5 million hectares of crops have been damaged and  direct economic losses exceed $3bn (£2.3bn).

 

Edited August 31, 2017 by Flex Mentallo

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

“For the globe, we’ll see heat and extreme rainfall records fall for the foreseeable future”

Friederike Otto, deputy director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford

For each of the past 3 years global temperatures have hit peaks not seen since the birth of meteorology, and probably not for more than 110,000 years. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air is at its highest level in 4m years. Storms like Harvey are therefore wetter and more powerful. The surface temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is more than a degree higher than 30 years ago. The storm surge was greater because sea levels have risen 20cm as a result of more than 100 years of human-related global warming. This has melted glaciers and thermally expanded the volume of seawater.

In the US, hurricanes usually move inland and diminish in power as they get further from the sea. Harvey, however, was stationary for several days – which is the main factor in its rainfall record. Scientists have said this may be the single biggest question posed by Harvey. “I’m not aware of anyone asking this before. I’m not sure anyone would have predicted this kind of event,” said Tim Palmer a Royal Society research professor at the University of Oxford.

No-one saw this coming.

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

If there is a glimmer of radiance, it is in the way that the Texan community has rallied round to help each other, which I find deeply moving, and inspiring. If there is hope, it is not in our politicians, but in the resilience of the human spirit. The following was shared on a friend's Facebook page the other day:

 

For those of you NON-Texans making comments on these pictures about how people deserve what they get because they didn't evacuate or making offhanded comments that they don't deserve to be rescued...STOP.

There are 6 million people in Houston. It didn't become a Category 4 until it was nearly making landfall. The flooding came on SO FAST that no one could have predicted the devastation.

Try evacuating 6 million people...do you know how long that would take? How dangerous that would be? They still would have had to be rescued...just would have nearly drowned on the roads instead of in their homes.

We have done hurricanes before. LOTS of them. And no one predicted devastation of this magnitude.

So before you cast judgment on Texans, keep in mind we take care of our own. I have seen people of every color and creed today giving themselves sacrificially to save the lives of others. People took out their boats and rescued total strangers, people delivered babies of neighbors they had never met, people fed others who hadn't eaten in hours, while people left the comforts of their home to volunteer their time and donate food to shelters. No one saw , democratic, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, trump-lovers, trump-haters...we just saw humans. Humans in need. And Texans have ALWAYS looked out for each other.

So judge all you want. We abide by a different set of rules here...where we staunchly defend our neighbors and look out for our fellow man...and pay no mind to the nay-sayers.

We will survive. We will thrive. We will rebuild. We will be stronger than ever. Because that's what Texans do.

Amber Human Brown

 

[Straw-Man]

that was a tough couple pages of internetting.

[Mutie Fan]

Yes it was. But I appreciate it being posted. Thank you Flex.

[Flex Mentallo]

16 hours ago, Straw-Man said:

that was a tough couple pages of internetting.

3 hours ago, Mutie Fan said:

Yes it was. But I appreciate it being posted. Thank you Flex.

Thanks to both of you for commenting. In case anyone reading is unaware, an impassioned debate about HH is underway in The Water Cooler

 

Keeping an Eye on the Tropics *Harvey*

[MrBedrock]

On 8/8/2017 at 2:26 AM, Flex Mentallo said:

We dream of a rainbow coloured world in which diversity is celebrated, difference are embraced, and boy and girls, men and women are treated equally.

A beautiful dream.

[MrBedrock]

A very dear and longtime friend of mine has a house in a suburb called Friendswood, south of Houston along I-45. That neighborhood experienced some heavy flooding Saturday and Sunday. Bob's house had a few feet of water in it and he and his wife, along with his mother-in-law, two cats, and two big beautiful dogs, were boat rescued Sunday at midday. I saw Susan's posted video of their departure from their home on facebook and it was emotional. A couple of my coworkers and I, along with some members of Bob's church and his neighbors helped strip sheetrock and carpet from his house yesterday. Everywhere down there piled in front of every home are huge mounds of peoples lives discarded at the curb. Around two o'clock three young girls walked to the door and asked if we wanted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Their mom was driving along with them through the neighborhood with a van load of sandwiches that they had made to hand out to anyone who wanted one.

[Flex Mentallo]

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.

[Flex Mentallo]

Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.

[Flex Mentallo]

The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.