The bottom line is, Mother Nature always wins. Whether you're a citified 9-to-5er or a country bumpkin, the earth will always find you, and what she says, goes.
The amount of snowfall and rain the U.S. received over the winter and early spring months is now causing fallout throughout the Midwest and South thanks to the giant Mississippi River. All that water has to drain somewhere and normally drifts South via the Mississippi and then is channeled out to the Gulf of Mexico where there is room for it to disperse.
This year, there is so much of this damn water and melted snow, the Mississippi is flooding. Water levels in the river are as high as anyone under the age of 80 has seen in their lifetimes.
The flooding has wiped out towns and cities up north in Tennessee and Missouri as states further south have a bit more warning notice and are taking preventative measures their neighbours to the north didn't have figured out before half their stuff was buried under 15 feet of water.
As the huge amounts of water drain south, decisions have been made by FEMA and the Army Corp. of Engineers that are responsible for both disaster management and the management of the river to bust open levees and spillways, flooding rural towns and farmland like Tunica Cutoff, Missouri (population 10,000) and Butte La Rose, Louisiana (population 11,000) in order to spare the damage from larger cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Lousiana, cities we've all actually heard of with populations in the hundred thousands.
The people that live in these areas around the Mississippi River are warned when they initially purchase the property and then every year by letter from the federal government of the possibility that the levees and spillways could be opened in the event of the river rising too high to prevent damage to the larger cities, so it's not like they didn't know it could happen. Easements were created after the Mississippi flooded in 1927 to allow the government to use that land for emergency drainage, easements that are still in place and being enforced today. That's why the land is so cheap. People choose to live there based on the idea that it "most likely" won't happen. But knowing it could happen and it actually happening are two different things. In the case of the Morganza Spillway, the last time it was opened was in 1973, nearly 40 years ago. It's the difference between a threat and actually having your entire home wiped out.
Because the residents of these smaller towns were aware of the possibility, they seem to be taking it pretty well. People have had time to gather their things and evacuate, farmers know they will be compensated for lost crops, families expect to return to the flooded areas by fall after the water dries up.
It's the idea of hurting the few to spare the many, and I have to wonder if that doesn't add to a little resentment between the urban and rural populations. As most of us in the U.S. (and around the world) are aware, there is a big disparity between Americans of the urban mindset and those of the rural. Just look at our voting record, for starters.
In the last presidential election, it looks as though more of the U.S. voted for the Republican candidate than the Democratic candidate, but Obama won. The majority of blue votes came from areas that house large cities and larger populations; look on the map where Atlanta is, and Detroit, Cleveland, New York, LA, Phoenix, New Orleans, Miami, Seattle, Boston, Portland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Denver. The more sparse, rural areas that voted Republican take up more area but house less people, thus showing how the Republicans lost, and how the political views of those in urban areas tend to differ from those in rural.
Stereotypes exist for a reason; because they are partially true. City folks don't want guns in their neighbourhoods, rural folks carry shotguns openly on the backs of their pickup trucks. City folks eat exotic salads and Indian food, rural folks eat barbecued ribs and deep-fried everything. Rural people have 10 kids, city people have abortions. Rural folks go to the three local bars they have in town on a Friday night, city folks go to the theatre and high-end restaurants. Rural people get through high school, city people get doctorate degrees. Rural folks like peace and quiet, city folks dig the noise and excitement.
Of course none of that is true of all urban- vs. rural-living people. You'll find deep-thinking, healthy-eating people in small-town Kimball, Nebraska (I know one), and you'll have uneducated, baby-factories in places like Boston and New York, especially among the poorer populations of the cities. But it's like living in two different Americas where one population despises the other and thinks they're all "wrong".
The gun control issue is a great one to show our disparity. Rural folks and city-goers mostly disagree on gun regulations because the rules are different depending on where you live. Everybody thinks the other side is "wrong", rather than just admitting that it's two separate worlds we live in that require different regulations.
So I have to wonder if there's resentment there among the folks whose homes and lives are being up-ended in order to spare the damage to the citified parts of the country that they have no connection to, and no desire to be a part of. Is it right to hurt the few to spare the many in this case? Are white farmers along the edge of the Mississippi pissed that their homes are purposely being flooded to save the largely black population of New Orleans? Does something like this only further add to the polarity between the two populations that reside in America?
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