Floods - Nature always bats last. And while we may always make honest efforts to understand the blueprints of The Great Architect, for that thumbprint is on everything in the Created universes - we will not always understand well enough to tamper with it, but might glimpse enough of the pattern to faithfully replicate and steward it for future generations. This requires modesty and humility. The Mortal Sin of Pride is always the snare.... the balance between good steward and desiring to be a master of something that is not ours to actually own, is delicate.
I grew up on the Missouri River, north of Kansas City. That river would routinely flood - Nature created Her from layers of limestone and sandstone - sedimentary rocks - wearing away at them, over the deep time of millennia. She's a Changeling river - her channels routinely shifted, making it hazardous for deep draught boats but navigable for shallow draughts. The old sloughs caught floods and slowed them down, blessing that land with fertility season after season. But the Corps of Engineers dredged the channels in the 1950s and '60s that's when the flooding became worse and less contained. The years it was really bad the floods came past the railroad tracks all the way to First street and just past the foot of the hill on Main Street.
But these floods today are differently made - trillions of gallons of waters dumping from the Heavens in very short spaces of time and that dumping stalled out and prolonged by blocked systems. The insurance company idea of a flood plains have to change. Personally - I wouldn't buy property anywhere below a 1,000 year flood line. Not on a bet.
I look at Mt. Rainier towering over Seattle knowing that someday it may well erupt, instantly melting all of those glaciers sending massive bodies of water down to take out our urban areas.
We saw that here when I was a kid, with Mt. St. Helens, a bit to the south of our population centers. The damage was extraordinary. Had it been located, like Rainier, where that inundation would hit large cities it would have been unimaginable.
To believe that we can control nature is I think a great delusion.
Seattle is my city - I love it there. I was stationed at McChord AFB in Tacoma in the early-mid 80s, and lived outside of Puyallup, in an apartment on the river - Rainier was just outside my door. I've tried to get back to it for over 30 years. I got close in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and Mt Hood.
The chances are that the West coast will experience an 8+subduction zone earthquake before Rainier blows. The Big quake happens every 350 years or so - it's been 360 years since the last one. It's not a matter of if, but only a matter of when.
Undoubtedly we'll get the big shake in Seattle one of these days, and I don't imagine this area to be nearly as prepared for that as the urban centers in California, just due to the fact that they experience quakes more often so have them higher in mind.
I was in our State Capitol when the 6.8 Nisqually Earthquake hit near it in 2001. It was very close to bringing down the Capitol (Legislative) Building. That is one of the largest and tallest Masonry domes in the entire world. Since then the Masonry has been drilled through, and very large steel reinforcements added, so supposedly it will survive an 8+, but only time will tell.
Floods - Nature always bats last. And while we may always make honest efforts to understand the blueprints of The Great Architect, for that thumbprint is on everything in the Created universes - we will not always understand well enough to tamper with it, but might glimpse enough of the pattern to faithfully replicate and steward it for future generations. This requires modesty and humility. The Mortal Sin of Pride is always the snare.... the balance between good steward and desiring to be a master of something that is not ours to actually own, is delicate.
I grew up on the Missouri River, north of Kansas City. That river would routinely flood - Nature created Her from layers of limestone and sandstone - sedimentary rocks - wearing away at them, over the deep time of millennia. She's a Changeling river - her channels routinely shifted, making it hazardous for deep draught boats but navigable for shallow draughts. The old sloughs caught floods and slowed them down, blessing that land with fertility season after season. But the Corps of Engineers dredged the channels in the 1950s and '60s that's when the flooding became worse and less contained. The years it was really bad the floods came past the railroad tracks all the way to First street and just past the foot of the hill on Main Street.
But these floods today are differently made - trillions of gallons of waters dumping from the Heavens in very short spaces of time and that dumping stalled out and prolonged by blocked systems. The insurance company idea of a flood plains have to change. Personally - I wouldn't buy property anywhere below a 1,000 year flood line. Not on a bet.
The best laid plans of mice and men.
I look at Mt. Rainier towering over Seattle knowing that someday it may well erupt, instantly melting all of those glaciers sending massive bodies of water down to take out our urban areas.
We saw that here when I was a kid, with Mt. St. Helens, a bit to the south of our population centers. The damage was extraordinary. Had it been located, like Rainier, where that inundation would hit large cities it would have been unimaginable.
To believe that we can control nature is I think a great delusion.
Truth.
Seattle is my city - I love it there. I was stationed at McChord AFB in Tacoma in the early-mid 80s, and lived outside of Puyallup, in an apartment on the river - Rainier was just outside my door. I've tried to get back to it for over 30 years. I got close in the Willamette Valley of Oregon and Mt Hood.
The chances are that the West coast will experience an 8+subduction zone earthquake before Rainier blows. The Big quake happens every 350 years or so - it's been 360 years since the last one. It's not a matter of if, but only a matter of when.
Undoubtedly we'll get the big shake in Seattle one of these days, and I don't imagine this area to be nearly as prepared for that as the urban centers in California, just due to the fact that they experience quakes more often so have them higher in mind.
I was in our State Capitol when the 6.8 Nisqually Earthquake hit near it in 2001. It was very close to bringing down the Capitol (Legislative) Building. That is one of the largest and tallest Masonry domes in the entire world. Since then the Masonry has been drilled through, and very large steel reinforcements added, so supposedly it will survive an 8+, but only time will tell.