Tuesday, September 6, 2011 :: Floating Down the River

There was a meeting today in Mound City where the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and MoDOT gave an update and information to the public. These are my thoughts from that meeting.

There's nothing like watching your livelihood float down the river. Don't get me wrong, we are going to be fine. Not great, but fine. And honestly, in the grand scheme of things, I'm ok with fine. There are a lot of people in this world who hope and PRAY for fine. So I'm certainly not complaining.

But there are still things that kinda irritate me. Such as....

• No real plan in place to even try to make sure that this doesn't happen again next year. Add to that the fact that they KNOW not all of the levees will be fixed in time for Spring, and they EXPECT the season to be wet again next year. Sounds hopeful, doesn't it?
• That we have allowed this country to get to the point where we value wildlife MORE THAN people and their "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Want to know why we can't get more money to fix our levees? Because it would jeopardize the Endangered Species Act. That's a long story and I know I'm leaving out about 9/10 of it, but when you go down the path of "where are we going to get the money needed to repair all of these levees?", you end up with "Sorry, you can't take that because you'll jeopardize the Endangered Species Act." YES, I'm serious. And we let it get this way. (If you want to see what's coming down the pipe next, check out this article. It will make you sick, or at least it should.) 
• That questioning what happened this year, what caused this, is always interpreted as an attempt to assign blame. Isn't it true that if we don't figure out what happened, we are bound to repeat it?? So when we're told, "You must focus on the future.", if we're wise, shouldn't that include an examination of the past and what caused this in the first place? I know, I know, the excess rain and snow up north from this year caused this. And I would agree with that to some extent. But have we not learned anything from this experience? Can we not do anything better?? We certainly won't  if we adamantly refuse to examine the past. 
• Newscasters who don't have a clue what they've come to cover. I mean seriously. I had one news channel guy asking me where all the flooding was? (Like he was surprised downtown Mound City wasn't under water.) Was anyone in Mound City impacted? When I told him a lot of the damage was over at Big Lake, he asked me where that was and how far it was from Mound City. I might as well have told him it was flooding on the moon.
• Children who had a hard time being quiet during the meeting. Oh wait, those were mine. If you were at the meeting and those children in the back were annoying you, SORRY!  If it's any consolation, they were annoying me, too. And we are working on the problem.  (And unlike the above, our solutions do NOT impact the Endangered Species Act...at least to my knowledge, but I'm not going to investigate that issue because you never know.)  

So what did I think of the meeting? It was pretty much what I expected. Plenty of people saying they will come and "assist me" as we "recover", but not a lot of effort to ensure this does not happen again. And I know, there's no way to ensure that. But I don't need someone to hold my hand now, I need to NOT GO THRU THIS AGAIN.