Floods are outliers among natural disasters.
Earthquakes suddenly roll up from beneath us to wreak havoc. Volcanoes give a few hints, then explode. Tornadoes drop out of the sky with little warning. Even though hurricanes can be seen coming, no one knows for certain where they will make landfall.
Floods, though, are much more predictable. Days ahead, meteorologists can see an atmospheric river coming in from the ocean. Everyone knows rivers will rise. People can plan ahead and flee if needed. And, unlike an earthquake or hurricane, only certain people will be in the path of disaster – the people who live near those rivers.
As the floods have inundated farms and rural communities throughout Western Washington over the last several days, upending lives and bringing economic ruin to many folks, people in Seattle, Bellevue and other cities have suffered little more than a rainy commute or a watery basement. The many oblivious city dwellers who neither read a newspaper nor watch TV news may not even know about the human disaster unfolding in the little towns just miles away.
If television images are representative, a lot of the people living near the swollen rivers were already living on the edge, underemployed and left out of the benefits of the region’s wealth-producing tech sector – poor people who may now be utterly destitute because their old cars and modest dwellings have been inundated or washed away.
In this holiday season, those of us who have had no trouble riding out the intense rainfall in our cozy urban homes should not just count ourselves lucky, but maybe do what we can to lend a hand to our rural neighbors down by the rivers. At the very least, let’s not begrudge them the millions of tax dollars that will be spent to help them restore their lives.
After all, when the grinding tectonic plates offshore finally slip and send the Big One our way, we city folk may be the ones desperate for help.
See more of David Horsey’s cartoons at: st.news/davidhorsey
View other syndicated cartoonists at: st.news/cartoons
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