How High's The Water, Mama?

Three feet high and risin' (as the song goes).

But for many people in our part of Indiana, they're not exactly singing these days, and even if they were, it sure wouldn't be this song, as this picture from today's paper will clearly illustrate.

John Donne once wrote in his meditations that..."No man is an island".

He apparently NEVER lived in or near Fort Wayne.

Recent floods in our area are rivaling those from 1991, but according to my wife, it's nowhere near as bad as it was in the 80s (I do recall seeing the footage of President Reagan helping sandbag). For me, personally, I am both intrigued and saddened by the situation in the city and surrounding areas.

On the one hand, I have a ton of questions as to why this has to recur whenever some rain comes to the area (proximity to sea level not withstanding), while on the other hand, I hate seeing good people displaced, losing much (if not all) of what comprises the lives they have built over the years.

Considering this city was built at the convergence of three rivers (in Pennsylvania, they'd call rivers THIS size nothing more than large CREEKS...the DELAWARE...now THAT'S a river), one would think that flooding would be a given, and that proper measures would already be in place to protect lands and properties at risk from rising waters.

Apparently, such isn't always the case.

From what I have seen, these "rivers" (OK, I'll call them that for the sake of all you Hoosiers) need to be dredged. A DEEPER river would assure better flow and could keep waters from rising to flood stage. A WIDER river would slow the waters down, preventing spillage from any bottleneck that might occur. And dredging would remove all the trash that is inhibiting the natural course of these rivers. Concrete angled levys would also work to alleviate much of the problem.

But I see none of this, unless someone's doing it at night when nobody's looking.

Taking care of the rivers UPSTREAM would help this city to no small end, and those downstream can only benefit from what is done here as well. And that's only the "nuts & bolts" of the situation. As for the people, well, I've seen a few sump pups in New Jersey (also a very low-lying state), but here, having one seems to border on the religious. I know our aunt and uncle in Portland have one, and it regularly gets a healthy workout (then again, they live closer to whatever river/creek runs through there).

Yet when nothing seems to get done to stem the tide of these rising rivers, the city offers up what assistance it can, but in the end, it's the ordinary people who are the ones fending for themselves.

We see story after story of sandbagging; Midwestern volunteerisim at it's FINEST, helping one anohter, diligently striving to keep the waters at bay.
Many people succeed...others do not.

And I would be hard pressed to be able to sell a house in a situation such as this.

"Well, this house IS near a river, but comes with a nice 'water feature' in the basement...we like to think of it as an INDOOR POOL"

Somehow that doesn't exactly scream BUY ME to a potential first time homeowner, does it?

The people who suffer at the hands of mother nature every time we get a large soaking rainfall have to deal with the possibility that THIS time, the river might just get high enough to cause irrepairable damage to both the property and their lives.

All the photos, furniture, carpets, appliances, as well as the house can be replaced, providing they have flood insurance. Many people cannot obtain that simply because they're not near a "flood plain", but can be if the rivers rise high enough...water is funny that way...it always will seek some other way to get where it wants to go; one time it might follow the usual route, while the next time, it might no one could have forseen.

If any house gets flooded, you know the carpets are the first to go, along with any wall covering up to the water line. Then there's the infiltration of the water into beams and the worry if they will warp or not. The house's structual integrity comes into question. Any basement that is under water for a time will most certainly become compromised, especially in cold weather. What with freezing and thawing, the water trapped in the concrete will form micro fractures that will only expand over time, and that can make the entire foundation unstable. If the house is on a slab, that too can show signs of cracking.

There is just no "win-win" involved in this...at all.

My wife and I happen to be fortunate enough to live in the "distressed" area of our city, and have never in the almost 11 years here have had to deal with anything more than a trickle in the basement from an old furnace stack (poor soil drainage). And that's easily remedied with a mop and a few minutes time. We're far enough from all the "action" to not really be affected.

So, if anyone wants to move back down HERE, we've got plenty of "fixer-uppers" for you for CHEAP...and NO flooding!

(Besides, I could use some REAL, GOOD neighbors for a change - the current batch of human flotsam just ain't cutting it these days)

I will admit to not being able to comprehend ALL that the flood victims have to endure, but I will say that the MANNER in which they conduct themselves during a crisis like this is nothing less than exemplary, and is to be highly commended.

That says a lot for the "spirit" of these fine people.

Still, a lot of this mess could be avoided...and it should have been taken care of decades ago.

Why it wasn't may remain a mystery, but in the meantime, someone sitting in some political office somewhere needs to get their collective crap in gear and start to look at this issue and come up with some definitive ways to manage this flooding problem, if not find an end to it.

Our rivers are expected to crest in the next 48 hours...people ARE worried.

And that's no way to go through life.

Do have a SAFE weekend!