Don't Mess With Mother Nature

Barb's brother Jim, and his friend Mick, are home safe from Louisiana. They got a couple free tickets to an LSU football game and flew down for the game. As soon as they hit Louisiana they had to turn around and come back due to Hurricane Gustav. We've been waiting for word on their safe return to Pennsylvania. Welcome back guys.

The LSU football team ended up moving their game to 11 a.m. Saturday morning. The football team is reportedly riding out the hurricane on campus.

A few years ago I read a book by author John McPhee called "The Control of Nature." It's a great book and I highly recommend it. In the book McPhee documents places in the world where people have declared all out war against nature. Attempting to control lava flows in Iceland, trying to build basins in California to catch mudslides, and the Army Corps of Engineers work at trying to control the great Mississippi River.

I always remember how McPhee detailed all the reasons why New Orleans shouldn't exist, and most likely, one-day won't exist. Afterall it's a city under sea-level, existing only because of the Army Corps of Engineers construction of locks and levees. Existing only through our attempts at controlling Mother Nature.

I'm betting on Mother Nature, and so does McPhee. Despite all of our remarkable accomplishments, Mother Nature over the long haul will typically win. We certainly do think a lot of our abilities though.

A lot of New Orlean's population did not return after Katrina. And I'm guessing that more will not return after Gustav.

Why do we choose to live in places we really shouldn't? Why do we seem to have such little respect for Mother Nature?

I'm guilty. I used to go to the Outer Banks of North Carolina every summer, right about this time. Only one year was I down there when a strong hurricane came in. There was a mandatory evacuation. But I figured I could ride it out. I figured I could handle anything Mother Nature had to throw at me.

I was worried though. I had brought friends down that had never been on the Outer Banks before. I ran into a construction worker and asked him how bad he thought it was going to get.

"Well the water will probably be up to here," he said, pointing halfway up the door of his pick-up truck.

We took off within hours, and headed north quickly. In a couple days we returned. The roof had been torn off the house we were staying in.

The two most expensive areas of real estate in the United States are Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco and Manhattan in New York City. Both areas are built on garbage dumps.

After the great 1906 earthquake in San Francisco all the rubble left behind was plowed into the harbor. This rubble formed what is now Fisherman's Wharf.

As New York City grew in the early part of the 20th century there was nowhere to take the garbage. So they isolated an area of river and started dumping all the garbage there. This is now Manhattan.

We're an interesting species aren't we?