Storm on the eastern seaboard. I had the pleasure of helping my best friend move from her home in North Carolina to a new home and job in Pittsburgh last week. A few weeks before I had gone to help her get over the immediate trauma of having been in an auto accident that completely wrecked her car but caused her only some cuts and bruises. She has mostly healed from the physical injuries by now, but I know from my own experiences that the emotional trauma may linger for a while. I wanted to help her as much as I could and, being retired, I had the time to do so.
The drive to Pittsburgh was uneventful, but we began to feel some of the effects of the storm by the time we arrived at noon on Saturday. Skies were overcast for the next five days and rain was constant, but relatively light. Winds, however, gusted to over 40 miles per hour and the temperature dropped to the high 30's F. The fall foliage would have been beautiful, but was cancelled out by the weather. The overcast sky reminded me of why I had left Illinois in the 1960's and vowed never to return there to live.
I hadn't watched much TV while there, so I was surprised by the amount of snow in the mountains of West Virginia when I started my drive back home to Florida on Wednesday. The elevations above 1200 feet all received snow. At first it looked pretty and I had some fond memories of the beauty of first snowfalls I saw as a kid. As the elevation of the highway rose to about 3000 feet, I saw just how devastating the early and heavy snow had been. Thousands of trees had snapped from the weight of the heavy, wet snow. They hadn't toughened up yet from their summer growth period and the snow had come before they were in their winter stage. Some trees had fallen near or onto the highway. Snowplows had been busy, but in some places the highways had only one large center lane open. I hadn't noticed that the gas tank on my Silverado pickup was low until the low fuel warning light came on. I began looking for a place to fill up and began noticing that most places along the road were dark and without power. I was able to find a place for gas with about 2 gallons left in my tank. While filling up, I noticed that at least one person had just bought a gas-powered generator and had stopped to fill up some gas cans to run it. After getting home, I saw news stories about people who had died from carbon monoxide poisoning from running generators in their garages and not having adequate ventilation.
This storm was certainly far from ordinary. It was one of the very few ever to have actually strengthened after having passed north of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The storm was estimated as being 1000 miles wide and resulted in coastal flooding warnings as far inland as the western coast of Lake Michigan. New Jersey and New York barrier islands were devastated. Just a look at the changing weather patterns all across the world these past few years should convince even the most hardened skeptics that climate change is happening and that we will find our lives changed considerably over the next 20 years. The polar ice cap is melting at an unprecedented rate and the change in the flow of currents of the world's oceans will create a new "normal" set of weather conditions over time. As the oceans continue to rise, we will be faced with decisions about whether or not to rebuild homes on barrier islands and whether or not we can afford to build barriers to the sea for our major shoreline cities. We may be about to become more crowded as population centers shift to higher ground. My property sits at about 81 feet above sea level in Florida. My drive to the Gulf of Mexico to launch my boat now takes a minimum of one-and-a-half hours. If I live as long as I think I will, my driving time should be cut in half before I die. I wouldn't buy any Florida shoreline property if I were you.