Rain, rain, and more rain

 

Photo by Jean Walbridge

If you live in the Fort Worth/Dallas area, you know the news. And truly, wherever you live in the lower forty-eight, you have probably heard the news: we have had historic flooding in our area. When the drought broke, it did so with force. Tonight, flooding in Dallas was the first subject on the NBC Nightly News, with pictures of stranded cars, rescues, high water, and even water in homes.

As usual—and so wrong—Fort Worth was overshadowed by Dallas. But the situation was pretty impressive here. It started to rain last night maybe about eight or nine. I know it thundered mightily—Sophie will tell you—and I went to sleep about 11:30 to the sound of rain, woke up this morning to more rain. I assume it had been raining throughout the night, and it kept up until early afternoon. Steady, medium rain; then a light sprinkle; and then back to that steady rain.

The official measurement at DFW airport was nine inches and something. In my neighborhood, some gauges showed slightly over ten inches in twenty-four hours. As one newspaper reporter wrote, we got a whole summer’s worth of rain in one 24-hour period. There were something like 130-plus calls for high-water rescues and an astounding number of auto accidents. Familiar streets, including that in front of my former office, were chest deep in water, major thoroughfares closed. Fortunately, there are no reports of death or serious injury—a mirace.

Creeks have turned into raging rivers. Someone posted a picture of a tiny creek that runs off near the zoo (close to our house): it was a churning, swift-flowing torrent. I read where homes in the northeast portion of the city were evacuated because a stream left its banks, and there was water in some houses.

Jean, who lives in a retirement community downtown, on the 17th floor, overlooking the Trinity, sent pictures. The river was way out of its banks, over the walking path and the road next to it, with a lone pickup sitting askew in the water. I wonder if that driver knows how lucky he or she is to be alive.

Every year, there are people who don’t listen to “Don’t drown, turn around.” They think they can make it through standing water. They can’t. I read today that two feet is enough to sweep a car or SUV away. We tried hard to tell Jacob that at dinner. When I asked if he knew what to do when confront with water on the roadway, he said, “Go slow?” His mother and I both yelled, “No!”

It's a relief of course to have the long, hot drought broken. The temperature tonight at nine is 76, and highs in the low eighties are predicted for the next few days. Such a relief, though I must admit staying in as much as I do, I felt the extreme heat less than others. Still, as an Austin friend wrote, it felt like a fever had finally broken.

At first, I was tempted to say, rather poetically, “See? The earth heals itself.” But I don’t really believe that. These floods, like the drought, are part of climate change or, to put it more succinctly, climate disaster that man has wrought upon the earth. We have covered the world with concrete, destroying habitats that maintained the balance of nature, the vegetation that holds moisture for the earth. Our oil and gas and industries and luxuries and concrete heat up the environment, so there is no moisture. But today I read that because of the heat, the atmosphere holds more moisture, so that when it unleashes itself, we get torrential rain. I don’t pretend to be a meteorologist or to understand this thoroughly, but I wish someone with more wisdom would explain it. Meantime I know without a doubt that the weather in our world—hurricanes, floods, drought, long spells of extreme heat and then extreme cold, is getting worse, and it’s due to man-made climate disaster.

The bill that President Biden just signed is the first significant step toward fighting climate disaster. Still some states merrily burn fossil fuels as if there were no tomorrow. Yes, I’m thinking of Texas where Abbott has not seriously addressed the grid problem, despite his assurances. And West Virginia, though I don’t understand Manchin’s recent move where he may have turned tables on coal interests.

Like so much of our world, I wish for clarity so I could understand. Until then, I’m doing an ongoing rain dance. But I don’t want our new tree to get too much water so that its roots are standing in water. I am reminded of Elmer Kelton, the late, beloved Texas novelist whose The Time It Never Rained has been hailed as one of the few classic American novels to come out of the twentieth century. Some years ago, Elmer wrote an article entitled, “The Time It Always Rained.” He pointed out that too much rans brings problems, just as too little does.