Friday, February 28, 2014

DISASTERS JUST HAPPEN

The rain has just barely started here. We had a shower, but much more is promised. It's about time. We've been high and dry since mid-December.

I feel sorry for anyone in California who might be in the path of a mudslide. Those are destructive and can be very deadly, but it's nothing new there. When I went to the Descanso Gardens in La Canada as a student, there were concrete barriers around several trees to isolate them from the mud which had flowed around them during an ash and mudslide following some fire and subsequent flooding from the foothills. That was in the late 1950s.

My great uncle also recounted serious mountain flooding that had destroyed cabins for some of his friends. So this is nothing new or out of the ordinary. It isn't some sudden judgement by some imaginary god, but I know some fanatics who will try to make it such. I was reading some of their blatherings earlier today.

We dig up bones of ancient creatures who got caught in similar events millions of years ago. This is a turbulent planet that is very geologically active and also very meteorologically active. Today, we know about any such happenstances almost immediately no matter where they occur and that leads people to believe each disaster is unprecedented. Not really. I think weather patterns are evolving as the planet heats up, but disasters are not some new phenomenon.

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