This is from a wee bit over two years ago. Mr. Big Food and I were chatting about this non-event just the other day on our way into Starkvegas. They ended up doing a lot of repair work to the levee but mostly everyone just forgot about it as other things captured a planet’s worth of people’s attention.

I must have been in a bad mood when I wrote this, so I cleaned it up a bit.

“I’ll get on the roof and get someone to save me.”

Published on January 16, 2020

This is monumentally stupid. And pardon the rant.

As I mentioned elsewhere, there’s a county lake near here. We’ve had a lot of rain. The the levee has structural problems. The levee runs N-S and has a two lane road on it. (By my measurement on google earth, the levee is about 1/10th of a mile wide.) On the advise of the county engineer et al., the NWS declared a flash flood warning for areas to the east (broadly construed) of the levee.

They are working to pump water out of the lake, and there was no rain to speak of yesterday. So they’ve lifted the warning.

The title quote is from a newspaper interview with an old guy and his adult son who’ve lived right there their entire lives. He says he doesn’t know what all of the fuss is about. Floods there all the time, no big deal. Shoulda been worried last weekend when it flooded.

Geeze. Do you not look at the paper? Watch TV? The problem is not that it’s going to flood. Not that the lake is going to rise and top over the levee. The problem is that the bottom of the levee is being pushed/washed out. They are on the look out for “dirty water” at the bottom on the side opposite the lake. You can see the mud slides.

I swear. Who remembers the old Foxworthy joke about why do they always interview the lady in rollers and a mumu?

Old dude just turned 70– had to relocate his birthday party on account of the flooding last weekend. In 70 years in Mississippi have you not seen anything wash out? Not worried one bit.

Stupid.

I am not an engineer but I have a common sense appreciation for the force of 500+ acres of water. Scratch that. With the rain it’s now 900 acres. So you’re going to get on your roof, huh? Now just how are you going to accomplish this feat? Have you thought this through? And once on your roof, is your house going to withstand the force of that flooding water? Really? And you’re going to “get” someone to save you? How are you going to do that? Oh. S*^#. Your phone fell out of your pocket while you were climbing on your roof.

FYI. 1 ft³ (one cubic foot) of water weighs 62.4 lbs. 1 acre is 43,560 ft². Assuming a depth of only 1 foot (and I’d bet the lake is at least 20′ in some places), that would be ~2,718,000 pounds. Sure, the water can back up to the west (that’s why the size of the lake is greater than it was) but that’s what a 0.1 mile wide and not even a mile long stretch of dirt is holding back.

Utterly stupid.

But the worst is by far is “someone to save me.” Dude. As far as I know there is no Oktibbeha County Navy. Take some responsibility for yourself! You’re assuming that other people will put their own lives at risk to save your sorry a$$ b/c it ain’t never happened yet? But you got your picture in the paper!! They’ve been talking about the problems for five freaking years. And it ain’t getting any better. I get that you may not want or be able to live anywhere else. Fine. I get that “they’ve” been wrong before. But for crying out loud.

Monumentally stupid.

/rant and thank you for your patience if you’ve gotten this far.