imkittymyers at hotmail dot com
Thursday, June 29, 2006
ANOTHER FLOOD
Maybe you've been hearing/reading about the flooding in the Northeast. I live in an area which has been flooded a few times. Hurricane Agnes in '72 devastated the area. Since then, at least four times our basement has taken on several feet of water, and one year we were evacuated twice, in Jan. & Nov. Ironically, this time we have been spared -- so far. Had we gotten all the rain predicted, we would have been in the same soup.
My relatives, however, are in the flooded areas. Here's a map to show you the area.
#1. We live here.
#2. An hour's drive east is Sayre, PA, where Nurse G works at Robert Packer Hospital. With the major roads closed, it took her well over 2 hrs. to find her way home yesterday.
#3. Binghamton, NY, is where my neice and her husband and toddler live. Their newly renovated home sits right next to the Susquehanna River. It's the 2nd time in a little over a year that their home has been flooded. They're all safe, but once again the water has flooded the ground level of their home. For some reason, flood insurance is not mandatory there as it is here. Luckily, my nephew sells insurance and convinced his sister and brother-in-law to buy it last year. She said some of the gawkers are dreadful. They heard that their home was pictured on CNN and Larry King last night. We don't watch either so never saw it.
#4. This is where the I-88 collapsed and where the two truckers lost their lives. The last I heard, one body was retrieved but it was too dangerous to attempt to retrieve the second body.
#5. My mother and my brother and his family live in this area (2.5 hr drive from us). It, too, is experiencing flooding. Some streets and one park are underwater. Last Thursday my mother was admitted to the hospital (nothing major, just old age) so she's safe. My brother and his family are fine, although half of their backyard is underwater and they're having to boil their water. Their son (the insurance salesman) and his family are bunking in with his parents as their home has 5'-6' of water in their basement and no power. Bridges are out all over the place and major highways are closed.
8 There's some good video of the area flooding here.
Oh, God, this is really tragic! ...
8 IT'S hard to exercise your philanthropic impulses in Aspen - you can't find any poor people to accept your largesse. When the Food & Wine Magazine Classic ended in the Colorado Rocky Mountain resort last weekend, there were lots of leftovers at the Champagne Mumm "hospitality house" where VIP chefs, restaurateurs and sommeliers rested between events. Not wanting to waste the Tsar Nicoulai caviar, Perigord truffles, squabs, Serrano ham and other delicacies which had been fed to such culinary superstars as Bobby Flay, Ming Tsai, Jose Andres, Drew Nieporent, and Jacques and Claudine Pépin, the organizers tried to locate a homeless shelter nearby. "They found out there were no poor nor homeless in the vacation town of the rich and famous," said one insider. "Local volunteers finally found a Catholic church that would accept the culinary goods." Potluck dinner, indeed.
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