A Dark and Stormy Side of Life, Indeed

Quote: Face

But I can't see a way to prevent it.

Can't stop Mother Nature when she is determined. Just weave and doge, or rise. Or run, if all else fails. (got a feeling this house wouldn't actually last through much)

Quote: rxwine

Can't stop Mother Nature when she is determined. Just weave and doge, or rise.

Yup. That why I refuse to live in town.

At least the garage had the decency to pull my race car inside during all this =) I'm trapped here, unable to come off the hill, but things could be worse.

Quote: Face

Oh, the worst thing that happened to me is my new garden pond over flowed and now my porch is dirty =p. I and my home are completely fine. I live on a ridge over looking the valley and never suffer directly.

Good.

The question is: if the place floods so often, why don't more people move the areas that are relatively safe?

I'm used to earthquakes, and the same question may apply to me. The answer is that I have. The areas I've lived in my whole life are solid bedrock, rather than gelatinous, watery sludge, and rarely suffer any damage. even in 85 nothing of consequence happened around here.

Quote: Face

At least the garage had the decency to pull my race car inside during all this =) I'm trapped here, unable to come off the hill, but things could be worse.

So you can still make it to Lancaster Raceway, home of best french fries in WNY?

wow, Face

Quote: Face

Yup. That why I refuse to live in town.
.

Why would somebody have their house on an active
floodplain where you can't buy flood insurance. Yet
people do it everywhere. I have water on my property
that floods, but I live on a hill. Duh.

Quote: Nareed

The question is: if the place floods so often, why don't more people move the areas that are relatively safe?

I suppose the same reason people live in San Fran, or the southeast coast, or Tornado Alley... it's home. It's just money, anyways. In all the floods I've been through, only 1 person has died. That was the last bad one in 2009, and happened because he got too close to the crick when inspecting his property.

If you want to live in my town, you almost have to live where you'll get whacked. Move out of the valley and you're into another town, unless you were lucky enough to get a house on the ridge. But on my ridge, of the 25 houses on my street, at least 15 of us have been here for 30 years or more. There's not much turnover. And at $90k - $110k per house, we're considered "rich folk" =p

Quote: AZDuffman

So you can still make it to Lancaster Raceway, home of best french fries in WNY?

I've actually only been there once, and for drag racing (cuz I got free tix). This was back when I was a teen and looked for excuses to drive anywhere. Nowadays I avoid going anywhere north if I can help it. I love racing, but my local track is just a 30 minute, country back road drive away. If I didn't mind driving and wanted a different experience, I'd head to Lake Erie Speedway in PA. It might even be closer, and it sure as hell is a better drive. That city driving makes me homicidal =p

Quote: Face

I suppose the same reason people live in San Fran, or the southeast coast, or Tornado Alley... it's home.

There is a good deal of merit in what you say. Look at the people who clung to homesteads in the Dust Bowl. Look to Apalachia when the mines and mills were severely cut back. People stayed. It was home. It was a piece of land to leave to the kids. It was property for people who a generation or so ago were in Europe where the few landed gentry owned all the property and the most you could hope was to rent a farm.

Some people are not that much different than the monkey with his paw in a narrow necked cookie jar. He has to let go of the cookie to get his paw out of the jar....and he just ain't a gonna let go of that cookie!

It may not always be the wisest thing and in the dust bowl pretty much everyone was finally forced out but emotions run high and reason does not always overcome the ability to say this is MY land.

Quote: Fleastiff

It may not always be the wisest thing and in the dust bowl pretty much everyone was finally forced out but emotions run high and reason does not always overcome the ability to say this is MY land.

You bet. I mean, if I were to objectively judge my hometown to a prospective buyer, probably no one would want to live here. All our industry is gone and the few jobs left are all low level retail. Our hospital was lost in the flood of 2009; now we just have a little urgent care center open 8a- 8p. The industry what went under left us a Superfund site in its wake, nearly right in town. We house two prisons and a drug rehab halfway house, which in the last decade has resulted in a number of undesirables relocating here. The median income for a household is only $29,500. 14% of us live under the poverty line. We sit along or near a very active drug highway. We got 300"+ of snow this year. We get socked with a flood twice a decade. A large number of psych patients roam the streets from when the big center was closed and made into the two prisons. You know "The People of Walmart"? Where do you think they come from? My hometown, baby ;)

But that belies the underlying current of the place. With a pop of 2,700, it's small town America. Everyone knows everyone. When the SHTF, everyone helps everyone. I knew, as soon as I knew there was a flood, that Gary was gonna be out with the front loader and Chris was gonna be out with the excavator and Jay was gonna be out with the plow going door to door. And that's exactly what happened. Both Nicoles and Nadia and Jennie were going to be keeping tabs on the kids, running to and from the schools and housing the youngins that couldn't make it home, and that's exactly what happened. And Steve was gonna open the old firehall as a preemptive meet up / supply drop off point, and that's exactly what happened. There's a huge value in that.

Me? It's just home. If I want to go fishing, I know the exact color the water needs to be, know every hole of my personal 3 mile stretch. If I want to kayak, I know every rapid and fall for 15 miles each way. If I want to hike, I know just where to avoid the poison ivy and know exactly where I need to wear sneakers or muck boots. Need a part for my car? I know the exact store that will have it, and get treated like family when I enter.

I like new, and I like adventure. But I can get adventure anywhere. I can only get familiar at home.

Quote: Face

I suppose the same reason people live in San Fran, or the southeast coast, or Tornado Alley... it's home.

You know, back when the Popocatepetl volcano started emitting smoke a few years ago, I asked my dad why he thought people lived on the slopes of the mountain. He said "For the view." <roll-eyes>

Floodplains and the slopes of volcanoes are two of the most fertile kinds of lands on Earth. That's why people settle there in the first place. But it makes sense to me to keep the farms on the actual flood zone, but build houses higher up.

On the other hand, there's no benefit at all to Mex City's terrain, less so since the lakes and rivers were drained. So using it to stash the government is a good idea, as uselless alnd should support useless functions.