Flooding. Again.

Didn't we just do this? Didn't we just have torrential rains, flooding streams, flooded basements? I thought we were finished with that for a while. Apparently not.

This morning I awoke to this:

In other words, the Punsit Creek has again come out of its banks and is flooding. So down stream there will once again be flooding (if there isn't already). And once again, there will be closed bridges and roads.

And a quick trip to the basement reveals that in the race between the sump pump and the seeping water, the sump pump is about even. About. It will catch up, one hopes, because it is now no longer raining as hard as it was in the wee hours of the morning.

The forecast is rain the rest of today and tomorrow. The flood watch remains in effect until tomorrow.

Conditions across the Hudson River in Greene County, which was devastated by Irene, are probably a lot like those here. This is going to make the recovery harder by again swelling the streams and rivers.

May all be safe. And may all find shelter.

Four Feet High And Rising

Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, and Pete Seeger:



Spencertown, New York:

11 am:

1 pm:

Stay tuned.

Peru: The Devastation Continues, The US Traditional Media Ignore It

Devastation in Peru continues. Today's La Republica reports the bad news:

Intense Rains Leave More than 100,000 Affected

The prolonged rainfall that fell on the southeastern Andes Sunday night left over 100 thousand people affected, with particular intensity in the Cusco region, regional authorities reported.

The regional president of Cusco, Hugo Gonzales, told the AP that on Sunday the rains had left "more than 60 thousand people affected, seven thousand homes destroyed, 17 thousand hectares of crops affected and so far 14 bridges that may collapse from being in poor condition.

Gonzales said that "losses translate into almost $ 250 million dollars and that tourism, the largest employer in the region is losing almost a million dollars a day, which is aggravated by the isolation of Machu Picchu from tourists.

(translation by me)

The report from Puno, to the Southeast, is particularly disturbing:

the rains left "more than 22 thousand farmers affected, 23 million acres of crops worthless, and 25 thousand dead cattle including llamas and vicunas."

But if you're not going to read Peruvian newspapers on line, you won't know much about this disaster. If you're in the US, just try a Google news search for "Peru floods" and see what it turns up. Right now the top story is from Brunei. And that's one of the very few entries from today. The rest concern rescuing tourists at the end of last week, some first person tourist stories about being rescued, and the thinnest of reports from Saturday and Sunday.

Long story short, the traditional US media just aren't reporting about this disaster. And they are apparently not going to. That makes it harder to get contributions and other aid from the US for Peru's relief. And it also continues the extremely distorted way the US traditional media cover events in this hemisphere.

If we want to end this embargo on news, if we want others in the US to know what's going on in Peru, the only thing I can think of is writing essays like this one and this one and this one. And if you, dear reader, would consider doing the same, writing an essay, we might be able eventually to overcome the enforced silence and bring US attention to the devastation in Peru. And to other events in this hemisphere as well.

Peru: The World Needs To Notice This Disaster

Yesterday, I put up an essay about a natural disaster in Peru. I wrote about the devastation caused by the rain: flooding, mudslides, loss of homes, loss of crops, deaths, displacement of families. And I urged that readers make donations to Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross.

Today on reflection I think I underestimated the situation in Peru. Today I found two videos that capture conditions in the Sacred Valley of Peru so you can see them yourself. Conditions are even worse than I thought. Please watch these videos. And please help me to bring the severity of this disaster to awareness in the U.S. Peruvians need our help.

The first video:



The second video:



I realize that the Internet can be a powerful tool in circumstances like this. Please do what you can to be of help.

Peru's Natural Disaster

The Urubamba River In Flood

This year's rains have come to Peru. And the rains have been extremely heavy. The result has been a washout of crops in the Sacred Valley, which runs from Cusco to Machu Picchu, mudslides that have destroyed houses and other buildings, and flooding. Peru Rail's tracks from Cusco to Aguascalientes have been washed out or buried under boulders. And the bridges across the Urubamba River at Pisac, Ollantaytambo, and Urubamba have all been washed out.

Tourists visiting Machu Picchu and staying in Aguascalientes, at the foot of the site, were stranded and rescued by helicopters. But the indigenous people of the area have not left, and they need assistance because many of their homes and their crops have been destroyed. What's worse is that the rainy season is just beginning. If there is more torrential rain, and there may be, there will be even more destruction, more flooding, more landslides, more disruption of the infrastruture.



AFP reports:

Heavy flooding in southern Peru, which trapped thousands of tourists visiting the Inca city of Machu Picchu, has killed 20 and left at least five missing, Peru's Civil Defense force said Saturday.

Thousands of others have been affected by heavy rains, the worst to hit the country in five years.

In the Cusco region, the downpours prompted landslides that trapped 3,500 visitors in and around the picturesque mountaintop tourist site of Machu Picchu.

Peruvian authorities used 12 helicopters and 40 pilots over four days to evacuate all the travelers trapped near the site, Latin America's top tourist destination.

The evacuation of all visitors ended late Friday.

"The good news is that Machu Picchu, along with all the ancient sites, is intact," said Carlos Millas, president of the chamber of commerce in Cusco, a region heavily dependent on the income from visiting tourists.

But the railway that ferries 90 percent of the 1,000 people that visit Machu Picchu each day to the site was damaged in the floods, and Peru Rail warned that repairs could take up to two months.

The rains are forecast to continue through Tuesday, with some heavy downpours predicted for the south, according to Peru's weather service.

I have a strong spiritual connection to this area. I've written here about Andean Shamanism. And I've spent some time in the area. The indigenous people of Peru, including virtually all of their spiritual teachers and Shamans, by and large are poor and they depend upon agriculture to survive. Crops like corn and squash can be grown in the valley next to the Urubamba River because that is warm and there is ample water for irrigation. The irrigation technique is essentially the one used centuries ago by the Incas.

Those who live higher up in the mountains (the Sacred Apus) also depend upon agriculture. It is much colder in the mountains, many of which tower at higher than 17,000 feet. Potatoes grow at the top of the arable fields, other crops lower on the mountain. The fields are divided by the community so that the division will be fair and no one will get the best fields repeatedly. But when there are landslides and the soil is saturated as it is now, no crops can be grown, and those already in the ground may rot. And the fields are not accessible because of the mud. The animals kept by those in the mountains, llamas, sheep, and other animals need to be able to graze. Flooding makes that extremely difficult.

How to help out?

Make a donation to Doors Without Borders. Also, the American Red Cross sends aid to Peru. My friends in the Shamanic World are trying to organize to fill gaps in the aid, especially to the most remote villages, but that is still a work in process.

Venice Is Flooded

How sad. The New York Times reports that Venice is flooding:

Residents and tourists waded through knee-deep water Monday as they navigated the city's narrow streets and alleys, and its historic St. Mark's Square was inundated. Boxes of tourist merchandise floated inside the flooded shops around the square and even the city's famed pigeons sought refuge on rooftops and windowsills.

One of the highest tides in its history brought Venice to a virtual halt, rekindling a debate over a plan to build moveable flood barriers in an effort to save the lagoon city from high tides.

City officials said the tide peaked at 61 inches (156 centimeters), well past the 40-inch (110-centimeter) flood mark, as strong winds pushed the sea into the city.

Alarms went off at 6:37 a.m. to alert citizens, but many residents were taken by surprise because authorities had initially not forecast such a high water level.

In St. Mark's Square, one of the city's lowest points, tourists tried to stay dry by hopping on cafe tables and chairs sticking out of the water. The water was so high that someone rowed a small speedboat across the wide square.

Tell me again about global warming and climate change and the rising level of the seas. I only remember these things when I'm standing on a cafe table with an espresso in one hand and an umbrella in the other.