A few years ago, when Hubby and I were visiting my Dad and Stepmom in Louisiana, I was surfing the channels on his tv, desperately looking for Star Trek.
Dad and Stepmom are in the Bible Belt, see, and they've blocked most of their satellite channels due to "offensive" material. (The discussion of WHY my Dad has a satellite at all is for another blog.)
Anyway, while flicking madly up and down through 17 satellites, I complained to Dad, "Doncha have any other science-fiction channels on this thing, Pop?"
Daddy thought about it for a minute, then said, "Well, I think there's one other."
"So? What is it?" I asked.
"CNN," he said flatly.
Oh brother, I thought, he's really losing it.
In the ensuing years I've had opportunity to quote Dad on this one. But the last straw came this morning.
Like many people in North America, we've been watching the updates on Hurricane Gustav as it slams the Louisiana coastline a few feet from where Katrina blew the coastline away a mere three years ago. We watched in horror as Katrina flooded New Orleans, and we said to ourselves that they shouldn't attempt to rebuild it, that they should let it go. Because with the climate changes that are coming, all we can expect is more of the same, and much worse. We watched as hundreds of thousands of (black) people went without the necessities of life, as various levels of government constipation made a desperate situation worse. We couldn't believe we were watching live tv from North America, home of the brave, technological masters of the universe, etc etc etc.
This was our backyard, and it stank.
Mother Nature was giving us a whuppin', and with it a serious warning.
Which of course, nobody in office takes seriously...
We watched over the last three years as people languished in trailers, or worse. As various sets of engineers played with the equivalent of meccano sets and lego to rebuild levies - to 20th-century standards. About a hundred feet short of what will be needed this century... for the storms that are yet to come...
Well, along comes Gustav. At first we were content to hear about it's imminent arrival on CBC radio. Then we made sure to listen to the segment on the evening news - on CBC.
This morning, Hubby popped on CNN.
OMG.
OMFG!
The water is "over-topping" the newly rebuilt levees. Down there, over to the left, where the camera can barely see it, the water is pouring over the levee like a waterfall.
OMG.
They show reporters leaning all to port as Gustav approaches, clinging to lamp posts and clutching their microphones, tethered by life lines as if in space-walk.
They show reporters leaning to starboard as the eye has passed. The water is over-topping the levee. Down to the left there, where the camera can barely see, it's basically a waterfall over the levee.
They switch to a map of Louisiana with the red-hot image of swirling Gustav superimposed.
OMG, my Dad lives right THERE!
"There," says Hubby. "Isn't that where your Dad lives?"
We decide to phone, or try to. They must be drowning. Lafayette, where some of my Stepsisters and their families live, has been evacuated now as Gustav roars down on it. Ten minutes to go....
"Hello?" my Dad says at the other end of the phone. His tone is calm, almost bored.
"Well?" I say. "You getting wet now?"
"No."
"What!?" I exclaim. "It isn't raining there?"
"Well, we had one or two drops," he says. "It's stopped for now, but I'm hoping we'll get some more in a little while. Maybe in an hour or so we'll finally see some rain."
(Dad, it seems, lives in the equivalent of the Sahara Desert of Louisiana. I keep telling him to open a B&B for hurricane season, but can't convince him he'd make lots of money putting up people who are temporarily displaced.)
I said, "The tv has the pictures of the storm..." and Daddy finishes my sentence.
"Yeah," he says. "Over the whole state. Right over us, in fact. We've got it on right now." In the background, I hear people laughing.
"How many you got with you now," I ask. Stepmom has a large family, who all live closer to the coast than she and Dad do, who all come to stay with her and Dad when they're given evacuation orders.
"About... ten... no, twelve," Dad says calmly. They have twelve people staying with them for the duration of Gustav.
"What do you do when the plumbing backs up," I ask.
"Well, by that time there won't be any electricity," Dad says calmly. "So it won't matter."
I decide I don't want to be enlightened on that point.
"Do you have a generator?" I ask.
"Oh yeah. It's sitting out front. We started it up yesterday, just to be sure."
Okay, so they actually DO think about things. Not rely SOLELY on the Lord's providence. (No pun intended.)
"We'll get some rain for sure," Dad says. "But I doubt very much we'll get any wind."
"So you haven't boarded anything up?"
"Aw no. There's no need for that," says Dad.
On the tv screen, reporters are leaning to starboard and pointing at the levee. The map of Gustav superimposed on Louisiana continues to twirl angrily, right on top of where my Dad lives. The crawler at the bottom lists details of mighty forces being massed to save people from the peril. My Dad calls out to ask what Stepmom's blood pressure is.
"135 over 80" he says. "That's good."
I think Dad was right. CNN is a science-fiction channel.
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