Well, this is interesting:
The federal government is refusing to make public maps that show how far flood waters would extend if Lake Okeechobee breached its dike, saying that the information could be used to plan a terrorist attack.Those U.S. Army Corps of Engineers maps could help 60,000 people who live near the dike immediately understand the relative danger posed by the water behind the levee near their homes. But the corps said it is not required to release information that could turn a dam or other structure into a ``weapon of mass destruction.''
``We're not providing raw data to the public at large where it could also be used by people who might not have public safety as their interest,'' corps spokeswoman Nanciann Regalado told The News-Press of Fort Myers.
Like the news media, for instance, who terrorize people with a keyboard and a microphone during hurricane season. Terrorists come in second on this one.
In the absence of a storm, I'm not worried about water coming out of the levee: the lake is shallow. As far as "understanding" goes, if the people who've moved in around Lake Okeechobee don't have enough knowledge of science or history to understand what that same shallow, saucer-shaped lake can do when wind hits it, someone should give them a saucerful of water and tell them to hold it up and blow on it -- then they can show them the mass graves of previous residents. The 1928 hurricane wiped out half the population of western Palm Beach County by drowning them with the waters of Lake Okeechobee.
UPDATE:
A breach "would only reach near Clewiston".
roger that...
Dock, my Grandaddy...was there for that big one. My cousins all live in Pahokee, Belleglade..Clewiston...hmmm Ft. Myers..
I guess, Donnah that it seems the 'government' has always sort of figured that people would have enough 'intelligence' to be aware of such collosal
dangers (possible)however, since the Gov Of La. recently issued some sort of "remember to not wait for the FEMA folks, and LEAVE..in the event of a hurricane" statement, I guess you're right..
People are stoopiter these daze...somehow, now that we have the internet.
Posted by: csason at June 7, 2006 06:00 PMFish lives in Juno Beach, about 35 miles east of the lake. If the dam is breeched, the greatest concern in Palm Beach County will be whether the early bird specials are continued.
Most of the white hairs live in a catatonic state, and their days are consumed with belching, farting, bitching, complaining, and driving slow!
If the water does cascade through the dike, a greater concern will be the 2 for 1 specials at the Yacht Club Bar, not the impending doom. Belch!
Posted by: Fish at June 7, 2006 07:32 PMHeh. That was good, Fish.
I used to date a boy from Clewiston. Bastard. He did have a healthy respect for the lake, though, and told me his parent's story of surviving the Okeechobee hurricane.
I'm having a hard time picturing terrorists getting out there in the middle of a hurricane to blow up the levee. Far easier is picturing the media scaring the crap out of everyone for no good reason.
Posted by: Donnah at June 7, 2006 08:08 PMDonnah,
It has been reported by the media that the dike is frequently awash in spill over fluid, but this assertion has been refuted by the Army Corp of Engineers.
The Corp notes the dike does develop areas of softness from the seepage of water under the supporting structure. The Corp also spends a great deal of time repairing these soft spots, a natural development in soil based levees.
Whether the old girl is ready to bust her girdle is yet to be determined, with the exception of the old time media who have declared the old lady dangerous and a threat to civilization.
Sound more like a few of the female customers from the Square Grouper Bar in Jupiter, Florida. YeeeeeeeHaaaaaaaaaa!
Posted by: Fish at June 7, 2006 08:51 PMhmm.. I guess I was trying to elude to a mindset when I referred to the governer's statement...
I am saying that most people figured the Katrina 'victims' had hightailed it..they were told to, and that is why it is so ludicrous that the gov. made the statement.
I think the government has been accustomed to folks thinking for themselves,and becoming aware of their surrounding. Take Katrina, for example...is it really anyone's responsibility to inform folks the wind is blowing, or that you live near a big ol potentially dangerous lake ??
More often than not though, lately..I relish the idea of a huge-state clearing, (of undesirables)mosquito filled, gator slinging, cat 7 hurricane...
> if the people who've moved in around Lake
> Okeechobee don't have enough knowledge of
> science or history
Um, ... have you been to Pahokee? I hate to say it but a lot of those folks only know the science of working in the cane fields or in the fish markets. It is sad, but they would be in the graves after the next big one.
I had a chance to go through Pahokee four days after Wilma hit, to help bring the Belle Glade prison generator back online, and it was .... squalor would be the right word. Wilma had reduced a really bad-looking ramshackle of a town into utter crap. It was really REALLY sad.
Scott
Posted by: Scott at June 8, 2006 12:25 AMC'mom, don't do 'uhms'. It can't come off as anything but rude and I know you're not meaning to be.
Sure I've been to Pahokee. I've also looked at the calendar. It's 2006. That's almost 80 years for news to filter out about the Okeechobee hurricane.
The point of the levee is not to have the massive loss of life we had in '28. My town's river was destroyed for the greater good of the people around Lake Okeechobee, to control its flooding. It would take a huge hurricane, a total levee failure, and the failure of an enormous drainage system before we could start talking about a 1928 doomsday.
People should be aware they've moved in next to a reined-in lake, and if everything were to go wrong, they'd be soggy toast.
I had an aunt and uncle who were problem children enough that they used to harvest tomatoes over that way, and oranges up in Arcadia.
I just don't want another season of Michelle Rodriguez-style disaster reporting. It's like their sniffing for things that could scare people with, and they're starting to fixate on the levee.
Posted by: Donnah at June 8, 2006 01:13 AMthat 'ol Grandaddy I spoke of helped build that ramshackle town of Pahokee (my cousins, bless their heart) still hold deed to a buuuuuunch of 'houses' over there.
Donnah, you seem to be onto something "sniffing for things" etc...
When my Grandaddy died in 58, without a will...he owned 200 lots in Ft. Myers...a medium sized farm in Ga. and 2-300 'rentals' in Pahokee-Bellglade area. He had three wives/three sets of children.
My Dad was the oldest of the crew, and gave executorship (of the non-existent will) to his baby brother...who in turn has, through HIS children, proliferated the area with pretty much more of the same.. he (my uncle) died at age 55, his wife followed shortly after.
That whole area IS basically in a wetlands, to say the least. As a kid, I remember when they opened John Pennycamp..and 'speculators' dragged my Dad and Uncle to a barren strip of land known as Marco Island- They scoffed at them...
I'm not sure what the answer is, unless it is to
find Duda and Sons some other place to grow bell peppers and cabbage- out of the shadow of a potential super disaster (way worse than 28)thereby eleminating the need for population (except for the poachers and bass anglers) I do know that those people are there, because there is 'work' there..if you wanna call it that.
And I am certain that many of my family were lost in that hurricane (pronounced HURR i kun in old Floridian)as possibly yours..and we might get to see a fiasco..if some little record that has dark implications is discovered , or some Representative's statements are twisted to make it sound like GWB funneled funds from the Glades money into his private quail farm, etc..
I just know that a whole bunch of people have been grateful that the dike was built..
btw, we used to lay on our backs on top of that dike and shoot corn bats with .22 rifles...
it was right behind my Uncle Rayburn and Aunt Faye's house in Pahokee.
While hurricanes are part of the subject, we (the US) are due for a really BIG hurricane. I am not talking about even an Andrew- there are hurricanes on record, sort of, pre-War of the Invaders type records..that spell out windspeeds
that we haven't seen...the kind that wiped an entire key off the map, save one survivor. That kind.
When that happens....even Geraldo won't walk out in that...guaranteed. Then we will all know (those of us who are alive) the perils of living on a strip of land that sticks out in the ocean.
They don't make FEMA's big enough for that...or Galveston..they just don't.
