That Darn Climate Change Conspiracy, Ctd

By | |

Via WaPo, by Lyz Lenz, a columnist for the Cedar Rapids Gazette:

On Monday, Iowa was leveled by what amounted to a level-two hurricane. But you wouldn’t know that from reading, listening to or watching the news.

While the storm did garner some coverage, mostly via wire stories, its impact remains underreported days later. The dispatches, focused on crop damage and electrical outages, have been shouted down by the coverage of the veepstakes and the fate of college football. Conservatives’ consternation over the new Cardi B single has gotten more attention than the Iowans left without power or food for what may be weeks. And all this, as the pandemic continues to wreak havoc throughout the state.

Or, as the title of the piece says, “An inland hurricane tore through Iowa …”

One of the reasons to live in Minnesota, at least in my telling, is that I trade hurricanes for winter, its blizzards, and the occasional summer tornado. It takes a lot of bad luck to be killed by any of those these days.

But hurricanes? They’re supposed to stay over oceans, where they can absorb the energy found in warm waters. They aren’t supposed to make sudden appearances in the middle of the fucking continent. In the middle of the fucking continent just a couple of hundred miles – if that – to my south.

Having read that piece, I feel like I have a target on my back.

Now, look, there’s no mention of anthropogenic climate change in the article, but I think it’s a fair thing to wonder about, as I’ve never really heard of an incident like this before. And it’s something worth worrying about beyond questions of personal safety:

Gusts of 112 mph were recorded in Linn County. As I drove through the town of Cedar Rapids on Monday, I saw billboards bent in half, whole buildings collapsed, trees smashed through roofs and windows. The scope and breadth of the disaster is still being calculated, but by some estimates, more than 10 million acres, or 43 percent, of the state’s soybean and corn crops have been damaged.

You see, states like Iowa and Minnesota, not having seen anything like that since, oh, maybe back in dinosaur times, when it was a shallow sea, and I doubt are prepared to have most of the state blown over. Indeed, Iowa isn’t known for its skyscrapers (although I recall seeing some quite attractive Art Deco specimens many years ago); I have to wonder how the two or three in Minneapolis would fare in 100+ mile winds.

When new things appear, it’s a fair question to ask if something you’ve done is causing the problem.

My friend Ben Kaplan, a local photographer and videographer, described the situation this way: “There is no trash pickup. There are one hundred thousand fridges of rotting food. There are raccoons. There is no escape from the heat, except to run out of town to look for basic supplies in an air-conditioned car. Downtown, bricks and glass litter the sidewalks. Plate glass windows shattered during the storm. Many businesses have been physically destroyed. All restaurants lost all of their perishables. Factories are closed. Offices are closed. The economy — the whole thing — is stopped.” All of the destruction is compounded by complications from the pandemic, which make cleanup, charging stations and distributing meals all the more difficult.

It’s a cry for help, although I haven’t heard of any requests by Governor Reynolds (R-IA) requesting Federal assistance. That seems a shame, but perhaps Governor Reynolds, who appears to be up for reelection, is a little shy of approaching President Trump. It would look bad for her to appeal for help and be denied.

Or, in this era of Republicans hating the Federal government, of appealing for help and getting it.

But the political thing is a side show. I don’t know if the Minnesota state government has offered to send help, as often occurs when a severe storms knocks out power and extra power line workers cross state borders to fix problems. It’d certainly be the neighborly thing to do.

Bookmark the permalink.

About Hue White

Former BBS operator; software engineer; cat lackey.

Comments are closed.