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.

Aftermath

How very, very lucky I am. The sun is shining. The electricity is on (it never went off for more than a few blinks). It is cool, and there is a soft breeze. The Punsit Creek has finally found its way back to its bed and is confined with its banks. Yes, it is still roaring, thundering, muddy. But it no longer threatens the driveway or the bridge. Down stream it succeeded in taking out a bridge and the road is closed there. Here things look and feel normal. The windows are open so that the house can dry itself out. Maya the Dog is lying in the yard.

Where yesterday there was rushing, flooding water, today there is nothing but wet grass. The grass and all of the plants have been pulled uniformly flat and combed down, all in the same direction, all neatly pointing downstream. There are still many deep wet spots and puddles. There is lots of mud and silt. There are fresh raccoon and ground hog tracks in the mud. The birds are singing.

And a huge tree like a whale carcass has come from somewhere far upstream and beached itself next to a big sycamore tree. If I don’t like this as ornamental sculpture – I don’t – and I don’t want to wait for the next 250-year flood to come and take it away, I will need to figure out how to move it or dispose of it. Today that does not seem to be a priority.

Many roads are still closed in Columbia County, New York. Some people don't have electricity. And the State of Emergency remain in effect. Emergency Management has urged everyone who can just to stay home so that road crews can clear the roads, repair downed wires, and restore electricity. That's good advise and people seem to be following it.

I hope everyone will be well and safe, that everyone can return swiftly to normalcy.

Four Feet High And Rising

Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, and Pete Seeger:



Spencertown, New York:

11 am:

1 pm:

Stay tuned.

An Uninvited House Guest

Seems Ms. Irene is coming to lunch at 2 pm. And she's bringing her entourage: rain, wind, flooding, darkness. I didn't invite her. I don't have the usual Sunday brunch ingredients. Long story short, I don't know how to prevent the visit. Or accommodate it. Or at least make it as brief as possible.

The 2 pm dot on the map is where I am. So I know she's definitely coming, and that she's not calling ahead. Did I say that she and her entourage aren't invited?

So far, she has brought lots of rain and not much wind. Everything was saturated before she started to arrive. And of course, the Punsit Creek is flooding. It will probably get much higher in the next few hours. And, of course, it's expected that the wind will pick up around noon.

So I wait for an arrival that will fill the house with wet umbrellas, drenched slickers that smell of violets, and those cruel smiles unwelcome visitors sometimes feel obliged to display.

9 am, Sunday photo

Irene: The Hype Deficit

In New York, where Mayor Bloomberg was criticized for failing to make a big deal about an approaching blizzard that blocked ambulance access in certain neighborhoods, the Mayor has made a big deal of the approaching hurricane. In Martha's Vineyard, President Obama made a big deal of the approaching hurricane so that he would not appear to be like W in Katrina, and he actually cut his vacation short to return to Washington.

Meanwhile, in Chatham, Columbia County, New York, 25 minutes southeast of Albany, your Bloguero, a sharp critic of many local customs, decided to go to the Price Chopper Supermarket to purchase PBR and peanut butter. All of the bottled water, D-batteries, crunchy natural peanut butter, and pop tarts are gone. The premium beer is pretty much gone. There was still PBR. Ditto, expensive bread. They hare having very brisk sales, even for a summer Friday.

Says your Bloguero to the Check Out Technician, "So you're having brisk sales because it's the end of the world, right?"

Says she, "Look, these people live in the North. They need to get used to it. They need to chill out."

Your Bloguero,"Do they buy the same stuff whether it's a hurricane or a blizzard?"

Says she, "Of course. I don't know why. I think the radio tells them what to get. They need to chill out."

Then your Bloguero ran into his mother-in-law. She was wandering around in the check out lanes of the Price Chopper searching the racks of batteries. "What are you buying?"

"I'm looking for D-batteries. For my radio."

Your Bloguero notes that he does not have a radio that takes batteries. Maybe he should have one? "Why do you want to listen to the radio?" he asks her.

"So I know what's going on."

"Nothings going on. Why don't you just call me up and I'll tell you what's going on. You won't need the batteries."

"But you don't have a radio, so you won't know what's going on either. You won't be able to tell me."

"If you call me up, I'll make something up. It'll be exciting."

She frowns. Yes, she's tried the Dollar Stores. And hardware stores. And the pharmacies. All of them. She wants batteries. I have no good ideas about where to find them.

Your Bloguero realizes on his journey home that the impending "disaster" has not had the appropriate advanced notice. People are not jumping out of windows. Yet. There is something entirely insufficient about the build up to Hurricane Irene. It's not exciting enough. Yet. Something is lacking to to make Irene a really, really, really big event star. In short, there is a hype deficit. You might think there's enough hype. But your Bloguero knows better. This hurricane is definitely, positively lacking sufficient hype. Your Bloguero thinks they (please do not ask your Bloguero who "they" are) need something more like this:



Much better. Much, much better. Does not Irene deserve such promotion? Tell the truth now. Irene does. No question about it. Your Bloguero inquires: Does someone (please don't ask your Bloguero who someone refers to) have to invent the wheel every damn time some natural disaster is promised? You (please do not ask your Bloguero who "you" refers to) already know how to sell disasters. You've been doing it for half a century, if not more. Isn't it about time to get down to it? Irene won't wait. And she deserves it.

This Week In The Dream Antilles, Hurricane Edition

An Offering to Chac And Kukulkan

Chaac

Chaac is the ancient Maya god of rain and lightning. He is usually depicted with a serpentine axe (lightning) in his hand. His body is scaled and reptilian. He is worshipped at sacred wells and cenotes. He is in charge of life-giving rain needed for agriculture. At the dawn of time Chaac split apart a sacred stone with his axe, from which sprung the first ear of maize. When he is not in the clouds, he is near falling waters.

Kukulkan at Chichen Itza

Kukulkan is the ancient Mayan feathered serpent and represents both the Earth's wish to ascend to the sky and sky's descending to Earth. Through Kukulkan chaos becomes order. Kukulkan represents the merging of opposites and the end to dualism.

As I post this, the map of Hurricane Irene seems to have announced the storm’s arrival on the East Coast of the US, between North Carolina and Massachusetts some time this weekend. This is what the computer models are saying:

And so right now an offering (I recommend burning copal and/or sage and/or palo santo and/or a candle or a fire), a petition, a propitiatory prayer seems especially in order, an offering to Chaac, who controls the rain, and Kukulkan, who creates order from chaos, for the safety of all people in the Eastern United States:

May Chac and Kukulkan exercise restraint. May all be safe. May all find shelter. May destruction be averted. May peace prevail. May the rains be moderate. May the wind be temperate. May divine tranquility be preserved. Let it be so!

This Week In The Dream Antilles is usually a weekly digest. Sometimes, like now, it is not actually a digest of essays posted in the past week at The Dream Antilles. For that you have to visit The Dream Antilles. Please leave a comment so that your Bloguero will know that you stopped by. Your Bloguero likes to know you've visited.