Flooding

Like most of you I have been anxiously watching and reading about the flooding and devastation in Louisiana and Mississippi. Philly Future has links to places accepting donations. Matt at the Tattered Coat has been gathering information as well. Attytood and Blinq both have very good posts on Katrina and the aftermath. Read the Attytood post careful and think about it as you read the last part of this post, on local flooding issues.

As I watch I think of my own, very limited experiences with flooding. One of the more dramatic stories in my family's mythology is of another hurricane and a relative in the path of the storm who put his very pregnant wife in the bathtub (he was told it was the safest place if the house collapsed), and gathered his three other children close to it. The baby was named after the hurricane.

My father died the year of a big flood. We stayed with my mother since, at the time, my father lived close by. Mr. Jane’s parents lived a 20 or 30 minute drive away but we were unable to visit them because the bridge had washed out and it would have taken us about 3 hours to get there. A woman I used to work with lost her husband in the flood. His truck was washed off the road. Rescue workers could see it but could not get to it for months until the water went down.

I was in San Francisco a few years ago for a conference and turned on the evening news only to see reports of deaths in Willow Grove due to massive flooding. It is scary to be that far away and see disaster so close to home.

Philadelphia is built along two rivers. We don’t often think about this. For those who are new to the area, here is a short history of recent floods. The city government even has a “what to do” flooding page on its website. Here’s a link on finding out if you need flood insurance. Flooding is not covered in standard homeowner’s policies. Here is a link on flooding in New Jersey. Someone has provided a link to an analysis of PA laws regarding flooding (not sure if this is current). This past spring, Yardley updated some of it's ordinances on flooding.

Here are more links on local flooding:

The 1955 flood

Hurricane Floyd

Eyewitness account of flooding on Lincoln Drive

Flooding in Upper Moreland

Philadelphia airport closed, evacuations

Why am I providing these links? Flooding affects everyone in this region. How prepared are we? While our attention is focused on the issue, try to remember to ask your elected officials next time you see them for their views on watershed management, reforestation, development in flood plains, and regional planning. If they don’t know what you are talking about, vote for the other guy. We will hopefully never see the kind of catastrophic damage that the Gulf Coast is having, but we are not immune to raging, overflowing waters, either. Will Bunch talks about Louisian funds being moved from levy repair to security measures and support for the war. I wonder what's going on here.