Cairo Illinois is completely evacuated. The Ohio and Missisippi rivers are threatening to breach the levees protecting the city – the Army Corps of Engineers wants to blow a hole in a levee in Missouri to allow the water to flood farmland to relieve pressure. That would destroy this years crops but also deposit rich silt on the farmland for the future.
The Corps got permission from a judge, then the appeals court, and now the Governor of Missouri wants to get the US Supreme Court involved – meanwhile the levee is showing signs of impending failure.
Now is the time for leadership from Barack Obama. Your orders, sir?
It is worth noting that Cairo Illinois is the close to the New Madrid fault, the source of intense earthquakes from time to time (an earthquake in 1812 was felt in South Carolina and Washingotn DC). Because the buildings in Chicago built after the great fire were not built with earthquakes in mind, even minor quake in Southern Illinois might have serious consequences in Chicago.
The clowns in charge do not have a clue as to what to do. The folks that farm that bottom land would not get reimbused for loss of crops, because they agreed the land is prone to flooding, and would not be able to get money from the govt.
So by the time everyone is done screwing around Mother Nature will have eroded the levee and flooded the land and it will still be Bush’s fault.
Why again are we building levees to protect farmland in a flood plain?
I hope the Corps has finished their work down in New Orleans when all this water arrives down there. As someone on 60 minutes pointed out a long time ago, the US Army Corp has turned the Mississippi River from a meandering basin giving life into a fast moving toilet that the government flushes once in a while – much to the detriment of the Louisiana Delta and the life in the Gulf of Mexico. Who needs silt when ADM can sell you nitrogen fertilizers?
And… do you expect Barack Parsimonious Obama to make a quick decision? First he has to appoint a commision, then take 60 days to answer the commission’s finding. By that time he hopes and prays (to Allah) that the levees get destroyed so he doesn’t have to be put in such a difficult situation. Be kind, don’t put the poor man between a rock and a hard place. He cannot make decisions.
Judge Alito has turned down the request from Missouri.
Ka-boom!