Glenden BrownThe Midwest Floods
The news out of the Midwest is, to put it mildly, depressing. And depressingly familiar - broken levees, local first responders utterly spent, communities in chaos.
The collapse of the embankment at Lake Delton swept away three houses and tore apart two others . . .
The water pouring out of the reservoir also ripped away buried sewer lines, and a contractor started work Tuesday to stretch a temporary sewer line across the 200-yard breach. Raw sewage was still pouring out of the pipes and downstream to the Wisconsin River . . .
About 70 miles southwest of Lake Delton, the village of Gays Mills was inundated during the weekend, just 10 months after another devastating flood left residents working to rebuild homes and businesses.
The swollen Kickapoo River engulfed nearly the entire town Monday morning, forcing about 150 of the 625 residents to evacuate. By evening, the village was a grid of canals with cars submerged up to their windows, a repeat of last August’s flooding . . .
Indiana officials said they could not give a dollar estimate on the damage or the number of homes and businesses destroyed by flooding caused by up to 11 inches of rain on Saturday. Two more inches fell Monday.
Flooding in parts of Indiana had eclipsed levels set in the deluge of March 1913, which had been considered Indiana’s greatest flood in modern times, said Scott Morlock, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Indiana.
The weekend death toll included eight in Michigan, three in Indiana, two in Oklahoma, and one each in Iowa and Connecticut.
My brother and his wife live in Kearney Nebraska:
A possible tornado touched down near Aurora, about 70 miles west of Lincoln, damaging a few businesses and damaging at least one house on the outskirts of town.
There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
Tornadoes were also reported in Kearney, about 60 miles west of Aurora, where 40 rail cars were blown off the tracks outside the city limits. There were reports of downed trees and power lines throughout Kearney, and reports of damage on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus and at a county fairgrounds.
Downtown Aurora appeared mostly untouched by the storm, but there were twisted trees and metal buildings on the outskirts. State officials closed down a section of Interstate 80 nearby because of downed power lines.
State officials were headed to Kearney to assess the damage. Jen Rae Hein, spokeswoman for Gov. Dave Heineman, said the state’s emergency operations center was set up Thursday evening.
An entire region of the US is in the midst of a disaster. The issue isn’t just George W. Bush and his band of happy clappy idiots. It’s about conservative ideology - and ideology addicted to tax cuts, hostile to government and willing to sacrifice public safety.
At Kos, we read:
I am in Mason City. Our levees broke Sunday morning. Flood stage is 7 foot and waters are now at 19 feet. Hundreds of homes and businesses are underwater. The City’s water plant was flooded and the entire city of 30,000 is without potable water. A couple of hours ago the main electric substation flooded and failed and much of the city is without power. People remain in flooded homes. Early tonight I saw people wandering the streets not knowing where to go. There are entrie areas of the city with NO emergency personnel on hand.
NOBODY from the outside has come to help. Our local first responders are exhausted and overwhelmed. Small rural towns downstream tonight are being devasted. Levees everywhere are failing. Calls for help in these small towns have been unmet. Portions of our local guard are in Iraq.
The homeland has been left unprotected and people are suffering horribly.
We’ve spent decades hearing that tax cuts will solve all our problems. Hearing that we can’t trust government. Outsourcing government services. Pretending that governnment in any form is bad. And now we’re facing the consequences - an emergency response infrastructure so degraded it cannot respond, local governments paralyzed, levees collapsing.
June 10th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Glenden,
Maybe if we cut back on some of the subsidies and assistance and government give away we could afford more effective responses for what the government is supposed to be doing.
Let’s focus back on what the government is supposed to be doing….hint, what does the Constitution say?
June 10th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
After the Bush administration, we’re going to have to rebuild the federal government from the ground up. Bush has ground it down to where it can’t do anything. The irony is, incompetence costs much more than doing it right because the corrupt private contractors cost more than government agencies –even as they fail to deliver.
Bush’s misrule has doubled the national debt to $9 TRILLION. Interest on the debt is more that $400 billion a year. Worst. President. Ever.
June 10th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Hey bad Breath Bob,
Defense spending is over 70% so I think Mr Judd (who will not be joining the next congress) is fucking with you.
Medicare and Medicaid have spiked along with cost of healthcare in general because dumb ass republicans refuse bite the hand that feeds them. YOU my good man are as a much a stooge of the heathcare AND defense industry as they are.
Ever heard someone refer to the practice of voting against yourself interst? How about the dumbing-down of Americans?
June 10th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Bob - the 55% figure is insane. The military is the single largest expenditure in the US budget. The second largest expense is (drum roll please) interest on debt.
Spending on social programs is a small portion of our actual budget.
June 10th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Sorry guys but the numbers are true
That’s just the 3 largest entitlement programs.
Evidence to the contrary?
By the way Cliff, could you spend some time with some 5th graders? They could help you improve your insults greatly.
June 11th, 2008 at 11:58 am
The 70% Cliff refers to is really 65%. And that 65% is of Discretionary Spending.
This would be about 19% of the whole budget.
Bob’s numbers are correct.
As usual, Cliff’s facts are all wrong.
Big dogs….heh!
June 19th, 2008 at 11:48 am
As a volunteer (filling sandbags, removing trash, etc) I would like to say that these floods may be compared to Katrina, BUT, the response of the “local” people has been amazing. No cries of ME, ME, ME…nope it was “Where can I go to help”…This is the character of the Midwest. So, to me that is the difference, we stayed and we fought AND we will build again. Also, one thing that does NOT surprise me is the lack of International response for aid. America gives her heart, her blood, and her body to other nations in time of need…Where are THEY when we are in distress?