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Anxiety Floods Life In The Cone Of Uncertainty

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By STEVE OTTO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 22, 2008

I've heard it called the "flood of the century" and the "once-in-a-lifetime flood."

Whatever you call it, it has been heartbreaking watching the news night after night as the river towns of the Midwest struggle to hold off the swollen rivers. Every year there are floods about this time, but this is different, as entire towns are under water and millions of acres of crops have been destroyed.

A few years ago, some friends of ours who operated a small private airstrip across the Mississippi from Quincy, Ill., finally gave it up and moved away after one more flood shut down the strip.

This year, tens of thousands of people along the rivers who thought they were safe behind levees suffered many of the same tragedies the citizens of New Orleans did during Katrina. I heard the governor of Iowa say last week that his state's costs would be in the billions of dollars, without even taking into consideration the emotional impact of cities and neighborhoods washed away.

It is almost as if the Almighty has decided we haven't suffered enough with a struggling economy and surging energy prices; why not throw in some tornados and floods to make it even more miserable.

Our Turn?

It also makes you wonder what might be in store for us around here as the summer moves into the more serious stretches of hurricane season.

It's been fascinating looking at the maps of the Midwestern rivers, as the waters move from one town to the next and the forecasters predict where and when the next flood will be.

It's different in hurricane country, where you never know exactly where a storm is headed. The TV weather people like to put up maps with their "Cone of Uncertainty" marking out the possible paths the storm could take. Unfortunately, the storms don't watch TV weather shows and the operative word in the forecasts is "uncertainty."

The people along the rivers know what's coming, or at least when it's coming and what it is likely to do. With hurricanes you don't know until the wind starts howling what you are in for and by then it's too late.

There aren't any great levees along our coast to protect from the surge that could come. Our best shots are to be in protected buildings high enough to withstand a wall of water or to evacuate before the storm hits.

Getting The Willies

That's a scary scenario, especially if you noticed that one bad accident a few weeks ago knocked both Interstate 75 and U.S. 301 out of commission. That's one accident on a normal day when there weren't a million panicky people trying to get out of the storm's way.

I remember when Hurricane Elena parked out in the Gulf on Labor Day weekend of 1985. The storm just sat there, never moving closer to shore. It was late at night when they decided to evacuate Pinellas County. I drove down to the intersection of Gandy Boulevard and Bayshore and watched as the thousands of cars rolled into Hillsborough, only to come to a dead end at the flooded Bayshore, where there was a combination of panic and confusion. Had the storm come ashore, it would have been a disaster.

So make your plans, know what you're going to do, and don't wait until that cone of uncertainty turns to certain.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, to read and comment on Steve Otto's blog.

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