Mississippi Floods - heartbreaking.

Slowly the Mississippi swallows land and home. Maybe not as instantly destructive as the flash floods from the hurricanes, but just as ruthless in driving people from their homes and destroying years of memories. Unlike the hurricane, it gave time for everyone to move out its way. Now without thought or mercy it relentlessly tears down anything that stands in its way.  

ABC news and the National Weather Service report the river as six times its normal width and up to 47 feet (14.32 meters) deep. Everyone waits with baited breath to see if the levees in Memphis will hold. Memphis is the testing grounds for towns further downstream. If Memphis’ levees hold, chances are good that cities downstream will have the same success. If however the levees had to give way, Memphis would look a lot different than it did before.  

For this reason, authorities are desperate to stop the flooding of cities further down the river’s path. They will open the spillways to allow vast amounts of water to escape into the floodplains. This will destroy crops, and more houses, but at least the cities will be safe. U.S. officials call this “a necessary evil.” What can one do? Save the one kill the other, or kill the one save the other. Someone will feel the sting of the flood waters.  

Flooding however does not seem to be the only problem people have to contend with, there is also the issue of toxic water. The river is picking up some nasty debris on its banks and mixing it into a broth. Health officials issued warnings to stay out the water and warned people to enter the water only if they had protective clothing on. If this were not enough, there is the slight problem of reptilians washing ashore ‘in’ the cities. They are not all friendly either. Some of those are the venomous kind, you know the ones that hiss and slither and make people nervous.  

Can you imagine what it feels like to watch the water slowly move to your front door, invite itself in, take over your house and you are helpless to stop it? The tragedy of losing everything you worked so hard to build up over the years, must be a devastating experience. One day you had a life, a house, and a job. The next on the horizon, you see disaster. You know it is inevitable, but you are powerless to do anything about it. Day by day, you see how it slowly crawls in to devour what you consider as your whole life. It is an agonizing wait to the final countdown of total loss. Very Sad.