The Gulf Coast is certainly not walking on sunshine today. I’m still not sure how the pundits can say that New Orleans was spared, when most of it is under water. A break in a levee today was letting even more water in from Lake Ponchartrain, so who’s to say where it might end. The death toll in Mississippi alone is appalling. So perhaps instead of Katrina and the Waves, a little Led Zepplin might be more appropriate…
Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
With so much flooding and devastation going on just a couple of states over, our little tempest in a teapot over Lake Fairfield seems petty in comparison. Our lake was lowered in anticipation of Katrina remnants which never really materialized. Yesterday and again this morning we found ourselves on the front page of the Greenville News talking about our flooding problem.
By some fluke of scheduling, our second neighborhood meeting took place with local politicians to discuss the flooding issue. This turned out to be a rehash of the last meeting, with every official group present pointing the finger at other groups – DHEC, DOT, and several other alphabet soups, with the legislature thrown in for good measure. The one group that had been so arrogant last time – the Soil and Water Commission – was conspicuously absent, and that meant that they got the brunt of the accusations, since they had no representative to defend them. One long-time resident put this in perspective. She had made complaints about the issue as far back as 1965, and was dismissed out of hand by County Council back then. Sounds to me like Council has some major culpability here.
This was in a larger venue, and there were more cameras present this time, including TV news. I told Laura I would try not to get into the news this time, but the Channel Four camera was panning across the audience, and I’m afraid I might have made it into a couple of shots. At least I kept my mouth shut – sort of. I waited until Mr. Camera Dude was changing batteries before making a brief comment.