By The River

Item # 347,568: Paying for the Bush tax cuts and the Iraq War

Now they have come for the flood forecasting system that protects river towns along the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania.
The Patriot-News reports today that the satellite link which enables river forecasters to provide real time forecasts on flooding threats will go dark on Oct. 1 unless Congress acts.

Residents of my neighborhood along the Susquehanna, Shipoke, depend on the flood forecasting system to know whether a rise in the river is just a temporary blip--as it is, 95 percent of the time--or a threat to our homes that requires us to move our furniture and possessions to upper floors or onto sawhorses--hours and hours of backbreaking work.

Turning off this vital satellite link to save money is about as stupid as it would be to shut off the NORAD radar that scans the skies looking for incoming nuclear missiles. Whichever officials of the Army Corps of Engineers made this reckless decision should be fired. One has to wonder if the "decider" was some Bush religious zealot who believes floods are God's will and people must accept them.

And where were our river Congressmen, Todd Platts, Tim Holden, and Paul Kanjorski when this was being decided? Or our senators, Arlen Specter and Bob Casey? The satellite doesn't go dark until Oct. 1. They have about a week to undo the damage.

Posted by David at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Half of my Shipoke neighborhood in Harrisburg, Pa., remains without power this morning. Fortunately for me, it's not the half where I live. The region was hit by a classic and severe ice storm Saturday night, which left trees, utility wires, and just about everything else coated with a shiny and deadly layer of ice. The weight of it caused a utility pole at the corner of Race and Tuscarora Streets to snap in half--it appeared to be rotted inside--and out went the lights (and out poured the transformer oil onto the street). Our beloved stick burner (see photo below) was practically begging for a fire to warm its rusty metal.

Surprisingly, the streets were okay, not slippery at all. I drove over to the Weis Market on the West Shore yesterday afternoon on a mission to buy a bottle of wine for dinner and marveled at seeing the forested islands in the Susquehanna River and all the trees along the river bank covered in ice, like a scary vision of some future climatic hell. It was beautiful, but some of those trees were going to die, possibly taking an unlucky human being with it.

When I returned home, I made sure to park the car away from trees and utility poles. High winds were predicted, and that meant some of those ice-covered trees would fall. It seemed the prudent thing to do. But I suppose if I'd been George W. Bush or one of his deluded followers (sarcasm alert) I'd have parked next to the biggest tree in the neighborhood and called for further study on the threat of ice making it fall over. Or, har har, joked about how it sure didn't seem like global warming was a problem today.

Speaking of global warming, America and the Bush Administration took another battering in world opinion over the past 15 days at the international climate talks in Bali, Indonesia. The talks did produce a framework for negotiations that will hopefully lead to a climate change treaty with teeth by the end of 2009. The American delegation--from the nation which contributes the most greenhouse gases-- was booed and hissed for its obstructionism.

While I do agree with Bush that China and India must be made subject to the same future greenhouse gas reduction requirements as America and Europe, I also believe that was a convenient excuse to cover up the administration's deep-seated hostility to doing anything at all about global warming. It isn't hard to figure out why Bush feels that way when you look at the strong ties between his administration and the energy industry, and with fundamentalists who believe that because God gave us coal, it must be okay to burn as much of it as we like. And if the end times are near, why bother to cut back?

When the books are written about America's eight lost years under Bush (this may need to be a multi-volume series), you can be sure that his stubborn refusal to do anything substantive about climate change in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence will be a central theme. The Democratic President who will likely take office in 2009 will have his--or her--hands full trying to make up for lost time.

Posted by David at 07:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It was trick-or-treat night in Shipoke last night, an occasion for both children and adults to have some fun. This never falls on official Halloween, but rather on the night designated by the city of Harrisburg, Pa., for the annual fun and frolics. Children like my daughters, seen above, gather vast amounts of candy from the neighborhood.

When I was a kid--here I go again--I was lucky to get a single mini-Tootsie Roll at houses in my neighborhood on Graafschap Road in Holland, Michigan. I eventually discovered that if I went to the upscale homes on South Shore Drive I'd get entire nickel candy bars. To my kids, this sounds like a "walked 10 miles to school" story, but it's true. Now they get entire handfuls of candy at some houses. I suspect candy is cheaper in real terms than it was in the 1960s. Seems that way anyway.

Some of my adult neighbors do "trick or drink," in which they go to certain houses where they know they'll be welcomed with a glass of wine. That segued into a party on Showers Street around the "stick burner," a portable fireplace I've written about previously. Scott Emery and I hauled it out and Jeff Duthie, after some patient work with damp wood, got a blazing fire going. The night was cool, as Halloween should be, but not too cold to be enjoyable.

Bill Cluck had the best story to tell. He told me he knows Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA spy babe outed by the Bush White House. I don't doubt this, because Bill is a remarkably well-connected guy. Plame is a 1984 Penn State graduate--you can find that several places online. According to him, Plame was a sorority member at Penn State, worked on the business side of the Daily Collegian, and was not unknown in the downtown State College bars. He got to know her because she was the girlfriend of a guy who was working as his legal assistant (Bill is a lawyer) on matters regarding the Lock Haven, Pa., SuperFund site. It ended badly for the boyfriend, but Bill and Valerie keep in touch today with the occasional e-mail.

There are a million stories in the streets of Shipoke. Now comes the Halloween parade on Sunday and another, bigger party that evening.

Posted by David at 07:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Although it seems of late that summer will never end--how many years can you comfortably wear shorts on Oct. 23--it inevitably will. Cold weather will follow, and it will be time to light the first fire in the fireplace.

I got a half-cord of split, seasoned oak delivered yesterday by Charlie Barlow. I've been buying from him for years. He lives in the backwoods of Perry County, and every couple of years I give him a call and he brings a load of wood down to my home in Shipoke. He and I unload the wood onto the sidewalk in front of my house, and then I get to lug it back four pieces at a time to the wood rack under the porch in the back of the house.

Charlie is a rarity--a Democrat in Perry County, where Republican registrations outnumber Democratic ones by 5-1. We talked about Hillary Clinton's chances. He thinks she's going to go all the way, but confesses to worries about what the other side will try to do to her. I agree that it's a worry, but note that she's been through 15 years of this and survived.

He nods and chuckles. "She's a tough old broad," he said.

Charlies has been in the firewood business all his life, as his father was before him. His own son is now into it, too. During the Depression, his father's sawmill kept local men working for $2 a day, enough to get by back then. During our visits, Charlie always mentions the development and population pressures in Perry County, both in terms of new houses and subdivisions built by "millionaires" and a much greater number of deer hunters in the fall. The backwoods is not so backwoods anymore.

"The more people you get, the more taxes go up," he said. "For schools."

Mexican immigrants concern him. There are more in Juniata County with its big poultry processing plants, he said, but Perry County gets its share. Their driving habits concern him the most. A friend's wife died in a collision with one of them, and there was no insurance, no license, no nothing. Just a junker car and a bad driver.

We finished unloading the truck and he was on his way back to Perry County. A couple of hours later, I had most of the wood stacked, having resold about a third of it to my neighbor, Bob Mummert. A full stack of firewood gives you a nice, secure feeling. I am ready for the cold winter nights when a blazing fire will feel comforting. I wonder if it was wise to buy so much firewood. What if I changes jobs and move in a few months? But I rationalize that whoever buys the house will be happy that it comes with free firewood. And in the meantime, we will enjoy the fire's warmth.

Posted by David at 07:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shipoke residents who received a letter from FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program in the past week may not realize the imporantance of the "Flood Insurance Claims Handbook" that was included.

FEMA has finally made public a no-fee administrative procedure that allows someone whose claim is denied by their flood insurance carrier (State Farm, Hartford, etc.) to appeal that denial to FEMA rather than go to Federal court, the only previous option. The process for filing an appeal is outlined on pp. 8-13 of the booklet.

The booklet doesn't say if FEMA has any statutory time limit for responding to an appeal, although you yourself have just 60 days from receipt of a denial letter to file one. The only mention of time periods comes in a paragraph that says the one-year period for filing a Federal court lawsuit, which begins when you receive a denial-of-claim letter from your insurance company, isn't extended by the administrative appeals process, which isn't a good sign. How well this works will depend greatly on the level of personnel resources FEMA devotes to appeals.

FEMA should have had an administrative appeals process in the flood insurance program years, if not decades, ago. Congress had to order them to create one in the last flood insurance legislation. Many people can't afford the expense of a Federal court appeal, which may well exceed the value of the denied claim. Unfortunately, the appeals process isn't retroactive to the 2004 flood. Many Shipoke residents, though not all, had bad experiences with insurance adjusters. State Farm sent us a former auto claims adjuster who had received a two-day crash course in flood claim adjustment. She came in with an attitude.

She and State Farm ultimately denied payment for damage the flood did to an outdoor patio plus a fence and support pillars to a second-floor porch. We were told none of that was covered, although a neighbor who had a different insurance carrier got his patio repaired. We ultimately paid the entire cost ourselves. I would have used this appeal process if it had existed then.

Still, I can't complain about State Farm completely, because they paid quickly for the rest of the claim. Another neighbor, who had flood insurance through the Hartford, waited nearly six months to get payment.

Posted by David at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My neighbor, Heather Emery, complained last night that I haven't written anything about our neighborhood Shipoke in Harrisburg, Pa., in awhile. That's true, although as I pointed out, a lot of that past writing was about floods or near-floods, and we thankfully haven't had any of those recently.

A tradition has developed in Shipoke over the past couple of years to have fires in the street on nights when it's not too cold and not too hot. Like last night, for instance. After watching the city fireworks from Riverfront Park at the end of Conoy Street, a bunch of us headed for Showers Street and Nick Woods hauled out his portable fireplace. We now call it a "stick-burner," because someone stuck a note through Nick's door asking if he was interested in selling his "stick-burner" for $10. Nah.

Nick set up the stick-burner in the middle of Showers Street, which runs between Tuscarora and Conoy. It is narrow, has no on-street parking, and gets almost no through traffic late at night. He lit a fire and people hauled out chairs and drinks--white wine, beer, champagne, and Irish whiskey--and sat around for about three hours discussing everything from the 2004 flood to home renovations to Harrisburg Academy to our jobs. All the adjoining neighbors who were home came out, so there was no need to worry about keeping anyone up with our chatter.

Most of us shared the experience of having gone through the September 2004 flood, which left Shipoke under several feet of water. It wasn't as bad as the 1996 flood, but any flood that fills your basement and then rises onto the first floor is a hassle and a mess. But there was plenty of humor, too, even if it didn't seem that funny at the time. I related the story of the gradually descending level in my bottle of Maker's Mark--the crew cleaning our our basement was apparently helping themselves when we weren't around. Funny thing that. My wife heard them comparing the various midstate county work-release programs one day.

Everyone left around midnight, but we'll do it again soon. Fall is the prime time for street fires in Shipoke. It's that kind of place.

Posted by David at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As long as we're on the subject of hazards to life and limb, how about those intersecting on and off ramps along Interstate 83 in Harrisburg? To readers who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, imagine that your exit ramp crosses the entrance ramp for somebody else. You're trying to get off, he's trying to get on, and you hopefully don't meet in the middle. Let's call them on-x-off ramps, the 'x' symbolizing the point where they cross.

My pick for the worst on-x-off ramp, which of course is the one I use the most, is where the on ramp from 13th Street crosses the off ramp for Second Street. If a tractor-trailer, or even just a lowly Kia, is coming off 13th he can potentially block you from the Second Street exit, forcing you onto the South Bridge and over the West Shore before you can turn around. In practice, most drivers will attempt death-defying maneuvers to get onto the Second Street ramp rather than be forced over to New Cumberland. Others have their own favorites. Patriot-News City Editor Mike Feeley nominates the Progress on-x-off ramp further up I-83.

Who was the engineer at PennDOT in the 1960s who thought on-x-off ramps were a good idea? Who was his supervisor who said "attaboy!"? What was going through their heads? They can't fall back on the argument that this was the industry standard of the time. I haven't seen them in many other states, if any. And now we're stuck with on-x-off ramps until the freeways are replaced or until Doomsday, whichever comes first.

Posted by David at 06:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A few days ago, I had my latest near-death experience with a car.

I was leaving the Patriot-News building at 812 Market Street around 4:30 p.m. to walk home. Typically I cross Market Street in front of the building at the pedestrian crosswalk. The newspaper, at its own expense, details one of its security guards be a crossing guard here for about an hour in the morning and at quitting time for the day shift. He will walk out into the street and stop traffic so pedestrians can cross the busy street. I'm convinced this service has saved somebody's life. Many Harrisburg drivers have little regard for pedestrians and seem to have no understanding that they are required by law to stop for people in crosswalks. Those traffic cones that proclaim that rule might as well be invisible.

Either I was early or the guard was late, but there was no crossing guard and traffic was whizzing by. The westbound lane was clear, but several vehicles were approaching on the eastbound side. The problem is that at this hour, you can wait forever and it willl never completely clear in both directions. So I walked out into the crosswalk, waving my umbrella to make sure they saw me. Two of the drivers stopped as I approached the middle of the street. I was hopeful. Then as I was about to continue across a third car, driven by a dark-haired woman behind heavily tinted windows, came speeding toward me and whizzed in front of me without even a pause. I yelled at her, but that's like, well, shouting in the wind.

I cross there to avoid the intersection on the north side of Fifth and Market, a notoriously difficult one to cross during rush hour because drivers are turning both left and right onto Fifth, and even if you have the light they will make a right turn on red. You have to look in two directions at once to make sure you're not about to be run over.

The intersection at Fifth and Walnut Streets a block away used to be horrible, but a couple of years ago a traffic light was installed, which raised its status to "risky." The mian problem here is drivers heading north in the right lane of Fifth and making a right on Walnut. Some will stop to let pedestrians cross. I've had drivers refuse to stop, heading right at me in the crosswalk. Some think it's perfectly okay to whiz in front of pedestrians, apparently reasoning that as long as they don't hit someone, they're within the law.

Police are never there when you need them, and I doubt any driver is ever pulled over and ticketed for risky behavior toward pedestrians. I actually had a Capitol police officer yell at me and order me OUT OF THE CROSSWALK so a driver could pass. A legislator, no doubt.

My anger toward drivers has to be tempered by the fact that physics are not on my side. In a head-on confrontation, I lose. Are drivers-ed instructors doing anything to educate their students about being safe around pedestrians?

Posted by David at 06:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Halloween began Thursday night in my neighborhood by the Susquehanna River. It was official Trick-or-Treat night for the city of Harrisburg, and I handed out candy to a flock of kids, many from outside the neighborhood. I don't begrudge that; when I was about 11, I figured out that I would get much better candy if I went to South Shore Drive, a largely well-off street in Holland, Michigan, the town where I grew up. Back then, and I'm talking the mid-1960s, people weren't as generous with candy. You might get a single piece of Bazooka Joe bubble gum or a popcorn ball, not the handfuls of candybars kids expect today in our more affluent world.

After the festivities for the children ended around 8 p.m., the festivities for the adults began. Nick Woods hauled his portable fireplace out into Showers Street, the alley between Conoy and Tuscarora, and he and his friend Becky Ross got a roaring fire going (he just needs to be careful with that axe). Bottles of wine and glasses materialized from nearby homes, and we warmed ourselves in two ways.

Our conversations ranged from the Harrisburg budget crisis, to Game 4 of the World Series between the Tigers and the Cards, to actor Michael J. Fox's pro-stem cell research TV commercial in Missouri and Rush Limbaugh's ugly accusation that Fox somehow faked symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. Nick works for Medtronic and helps doctors implant medical devices, including one to reduce the tremors of Parkinson's. He filled us in on some of the back story.

This is one of the biggest party weekends of the year in Shipoke. On Saturday night is a costume party at Mike and Melissa Snyder's house. On Sunday afternoon is the annual Halloween Parade for neighborhood children and their friends. My wife, Lisa Brittingham, and Kathy VanderWoude created the parade years ago, when our daughters first were able to walk, to remind some of the less kid-friendly people in Shipoke that it wasn't just a neighborhood of DINKs anymore. That used to be an annoyance; there was once a serious proposal to remove the playground equipment (in favor of a tennis court) because "there are no kids in Shipoke." But no more.

The parade will be followed by games and a potluck picnic in the playground that often lasts well into the evening. It is often the last big social event of the year, prior to our winter hibernation when people disappear into their homes and you don't see them for months. Unless you wave a bottle of wine outside their window.

Posted by David at 06:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While it appears we'll get enough rain this weekend to bring thoughts of Noah's Ark (or should it be NOAA's Ark?), my Shipoke neighborhood in Harrisburg, Pa., appears to have avoided yet another serious flood. A look at the latest AccuWeather map finds that less rainfall is being predicted than 24 hours ago. But it's still a lot, and I won't rest easy till it's over and the upstate rainfall has moved safely past me on the Susquehanna River, which I can see from my window (although barely, the sun is just now rising) as I write this.

This one didn't get to the nail-biting, clear-out-the-basement-and-first-floor stage, unlike the flood scare in late June. On the night of June 27, the streets of my neighborhood were choked with moving vans carrying furniture into storage. It is always somewhat comforting, if you look at the history of floods in Harrisburg, to note that they are separated by many years. The last bad one was in September 2004 and before that it was January 1996. From there you jump back to the granddaddy of them all, Agnes in 1972. We have endured some brief, intense worry periodically in Shipoke along the way to our infrequent floods. And we party when they don't transpire, although a lot of people are away this weekend so it won't be quite the same.

The fear, spoken by some and unspoken by others, is that global warming is changing the equation, that the flood cycle will be shortened because hurricanes are becoming more severe. I'm not sure if the Shipoke lifestyle could endure floods in quick succession. Real estate values have been surprisingly immune to the flood threat, because people want to live here, but I wonder if that would continue if floods were more frequent.

Anyway, enough of the worrying. I'm happy to have been wrong, and plan to relax this weekend before heading off for a four-day seminar on energy supply and pricing at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland. As a side note, I removed the AccuWeather links from my previous posts about the Ernesto flooding because they no longer went to the charts and pages that I originally wanted to highlight. Accuweather.com, it seems, recycles its links.

So barring any change in this scenario, it's back to politics and culture. Until the next Shipoke flood scare.

Posted by David at 06:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

HYDROLOGIC OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE STATE COLLEGE PA
356 AM EDT THU AUG 31 2006

...HEAVY RAINS FROM THE REMNANTS OF ERNESTO LIKELY LATER FRIDAY INTO
SATURDAY...

THE REMNANTS OF TROPICAL STORM ERNESTO WILL BE MOVING UP THE
EASTERN SEABOARD AND TOWARD PENNSYLVANIA OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.

THE DEEP...TROPICAL MOISTURE ASSOCIATED WITH WHAT REMAINS OF
ERNESTO WILL BE ENHANCED BY A STRONG EASTERLY FETCH FROM THE
ATLANTIC OCEAN...AND A STALLED FRONTAL BOUNDARY THAT WILL LIE
JUST TO THE SOUTH OF THE STATE THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT.

WHILE THERE IS STILL SOME UNCERTAINTY TO THE EXPECTED TRACK OF
ERNESTO...THE THREAT FOR HEAVY RAIN OVER CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA WILL
INCREASE AS THE STALLED FRONT AND WHAT IS LEFT OF ERNESTO INTERACT
AND MOVE NORTHWARD.

AT THIS STAGE...THE MOST LIKELY TIME FOR HEAVY RAIN TO AFFECT
CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA WILL BE FROM ABOUT FRIDAY EVENING THROUGH THE
OVERNIGHT INTO EARLY SATURDAY MORNING. THIS RAIN COULD LEAD TO
FLOODING.

IF THE THREAT BECOMES MORE CERTAIN...YOUR NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
WILL ISSUE A FLOOD WATCH.

LISTEN TO NOAA WEATHER RADIO OR YOUR LOCAL MEDIA FOR THE LATEST
UPDATES ON THIS SITUATION.

FOR ADDITIONAL WEATHER INFORMATION...CHECK OUR WEB SITE...AT
WEATHER.GOV/STATECOLLEGE...ALL IN LOWER CASE.

Posted by David at 10:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I don't like the look of this one.

AccuWeather is reporting that that Central Pennsylvania might be hit with a deluge, which it defines as more than six inches of rain. If the worst scenario for Ernesto comes to pass, we are expected to receive 6-10 inches of rain on Friday afternoon and Saturday. You'd better plan to wear Scuba gear if you go out in that.

My Shipoke neighbor, Mike Tapper, was grim-faced and down this afternoon. He said "people are saying" that Ernesto could be another Tropical Storm Agnes. Agnes, which hit in late June, 1972, was the single most destructive flood in recorded Pennsylvania history. The flood crested at 32 feet at Harrisburg, enough to fill both the basements and first stories of homes in Shipoke and many other places throughout the region. That got my attention.

The National Weather Service's Mid-Atlantic River Forecast Center has an informative historical piece on Agnes on its website. There are indeed some disturbing parallels between Agnes and what is being forecast for Ernesto. What caught my eye was that the Mid-Atlantic region received an average of 6-10 inches of rain during Agnes after the storm parked itself over north central Pennsylvania.

But there are some significant differences as well. Agnes made landfall in south east New York and moved west across New York State before looping down into north central Pennsylvania to dump its rain well north of Harrisburg. And while an average 6-10 inches fell throughout the region, the amount that fell in north central Pa. was far greater. Shamokin, which is about 75 miles northeast of Harrisburg in Northumberland County, received an astonishing 18 inches of rain. That was the Agnes record, and they were still repairing things when I arrived there as a young reporter in 1975.

Ernesto is supposed to move north through the Carolinas, Virginia and Maryland before entering south central Pennsylvania and parking over the region when it collides with the cold front. If the worst of the rain falls at or south of Harrisburg, it would seem to me the flood problem would be to the south of us as well. I always tell newcomers to Shipoke that it's not the rain that falls on Harrisburg they have to worry about, it's what falls over the upper reaches of the Susquehanna River that can hurt us.

The other mitigating factor would be the extreme lack of rainfall much of the region has experienced this summer. The rivers and streams are low, and the ground is dry. When Agnes hit, the ground had already been saturated with 2-3 inches of rain. And of course, Ernesto could turn out to sea, eliminate this whole problem, and save this Labor Day weekend. I hope so. Our collective backs in Shipoke are still sore, at least in a metaphorical sense, from the flood scare in late June.

Let's hope we get lucky, but just in case, start making plans for moving your stuff out of harm's way.

Posted by David at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I suppose it is appropriate that on the six-month anniversary of By The River I am writing, once again, about a flood threat.

Living by the Susquehanna River in the Shipoke neighborhood of Harrisburg, Pa., means you occasionally crank up the Worry Machine if weather conditions appear conducive in some way to having a flood. It isn't possible to live here if you worry too much--you won't enjoy the parties and good life if you do--but it would be completely inhuman not to have at least a twinge of anxiety when the path of Hurricane Ernesto (may we call it Che?) appears to lead directly to central Pennsylvania.

This hasn't gotten much attention in the media, but we may get a whole lot of rain over the weekend, as much as 8-10 inches Accuweather.com's chart is to be believed. The City of Harrisburg has been tracking the storm since Sunday, I'm told, and is weighing whether it should postpone the Kipona Festival. That would be a blow to the arts and craft vendors, many of whom travel long distances to spend the weekend here and may have other shows to sell at the following weekend. But what are you going to do?

Of course, hurricanes can head toward the midstate only to peter out or turn out to sea before they drop much rain where it counts. If you read through the Accuweather site, you will findseveral good scenarios and bad scenarios for Ernesto.

All the same, people who live along rivers and streams in central Pennsylvania ought to make sure they have enough boxes to move their possessions from the basement and first floor living area to a higher floor. Office Max or Staples will sell you, for a reasonable price, flats of a dozen or so boxes that you assemble as needed. The building supply stores such as Home Depot and Lowes will sell you sawhorses on which you can raise those sofas and dining room tables that are too large to carry up to the second floor. Take advantage of these next couple of days to be prepared.

Posted by David at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is Pride Fest weekend in Harrisburg, and for the first time, regional gays and lesbians held a Pride Parade along Front Street, ending at the Pride Fest site in Riverfront Park just north of Shipoke. I'm never crazy about the festival being so close to my neighborhood, not because of the nature of the events, which are pretty tame, but because of the religious extremists the festival never fails to attract. My worry is that a more unstable follower of these churches might decide to commit violence. All the nonsense about "Hate the sin, love the sinner" aside, a lot of the Christian right preaching and denunciation of gays sounds a lot like vehement Nazi hate speech toward Jews in the 1930s.

I walked up with my daughter to watch some of the parade. Though somewhat disorganized, it was loud and exhuberant, even including some cross-dressing beauty queens riding in convertibles. Some of the marchers, like the ones in the photo above, were determined to take back the God issue. And while most of the protesters were as dedicated to their own misguided Christianity as one might expect, a couple did look like reluctant draftees, somewhat embarassed to be holding those signs. Couldn't say 'no' to the preacher, I guess.

Posted by David at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

That's a variation on an actual headline that ran in Harrisburg magazine years ago, when it was still run by the unceremoniously booted former Patriot-News editor Ron Minard. Minard, now in the Great Beyond, loved headlines like that.

The Shipoke flea market is held every summer on the Saturday after July 4. I'm always amazed how early people start showing up. Most residents set their tables up around 5:30-6 a.m., and customers begin arriving in droves shortly thereafter. There probably is a slightly higher class of items offered for sale here than in some neighborhood flea markets--we're a literature loving bunch, and books are plentiful. Walking past the booths spread out in Riverfront Park along Front Street, I also noticed many movies on videotape for sale, including a bunch from us. I think people are finally abandoning the VCR , and that's why so many tapes are on the tables. Kind of like when vinyl LPs began showing up at yard sales after the advent of the CD.

The event ends with a neighborhood picnic in the Shipoke playground that is the "social event of the summer" here, more or less. There are more than a few psychic wounds among neighborhood residents from the June 27-29 flood scare, but nothing a little wine and fellowship won't heal.

Posted by David at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There's an interesting story this morning on the wire from Reuters which looks at the issue of whether the tremendous rainfall and flooding or near-flooding of the past week was linked to global warming. It's one of those cause-and-effect scenarios that can't be conclusively proven. But the pro-warming theorists provide enough circumstantial evidence to keep the argument interesting.

I also found interesting the comments from AccuWeather in State College to the effect that they don't believe in global warming, that their corporate position is that what might appear to be global warming is just a natural cycle in the weather, similar to what has happened on Earth before. That is a position often found in the writings and statements of global warming contrarians, the scientists who shun the overwheming body of scientific opinion that says global warming is real in favor of a position sure to win them favor with conservative Republicans and big oil companies like Exxon-Mobil. AccuWeather is a campaign contributor to Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who has been a prominent critic of AccuWeather's free competition, the National Weather Service.

Santorum's criticisms of the government weather forecasters, which I touched on in my last post, may have some validity. But to see Accu-Weather jumping into the global warming debate (which only exists to any real extent in the United States) puts a taint on things. Again I say, conduct a serious investigation of how the National Weather Service handled the flood forecasting this week, but keep ideology and corporations seeking commercial advantage out of it. Lets find out what really happened. Why did the computers fail?

Posted by David at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You be the judge, but if you compare this photo with the one I posted early this morning, it appears that slightly more of the '20' is visible. Or more to the point: over the past 5 hours, the river has certainly not risen any further. Indeed, NOAA's flood chart for Harrisburg shows that a crest of 19.66 feet was reached about 8 a.m. today.

Time to start moving things back to the basement. We'll be dancing in the streets of Shipoke tonight.

Posted by David at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today is the critical day for Shipoke residents. MARFC says the river will crest this afternoon at Harrisburg at 20-21 feet. Right now it looks to be at about 20 feet, judging by the "watch us flood" paint marks on the railroad bridge at the north end of Shipoke, seen in the photo above. Here is the current NOAA flood chart, showing a projected crest of 20.5 feet. If everything turns out the way MARFC says, we should be okay. But the projected crest is just below where the water starts spilling over into the street. Our basement is still bone dry this morning.

Posted by David at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shipoke apparently won't get flooded this time, but several upstate areas won't be so lucky. Danville in Montour County put out a desperate call for people to fill and place sandbags. The Susquehanna River is within inches of flood stage there. In Wilkes-Barre, which was devastated by the Agnes Flood in 1972, authorities ordered more than 200,000 residents of the areas hit by the Agnes Flood to evacuate.

Near Elysburg in Northumberland County, Knoebels Groves Amusement Park, always a flooding hotspot, was evacuating campers and cottage owners. Several parts of Schuylkill County, especially the town of Mount Carbon, have experienced serious flooding. Some are saying the overall damage in the state will be worse than the Agnes Flood in 1972.

Posted by David at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 28, 2006
at 2:00 P.M.

FLOOD LEVEL PREDICTION DOWNSIZED

To: Residents and Businesses

Yesterday, on Tuesday, June 27 at 4:00 p.m., the federal River Forecasting Center predicted the Susquehanna River would go to 25.1 feet by Thursday night and into early Friday morning, which would be a major flood.

Today, they have revised their predictions twice. They now forecast the river to reach 20.5 feet tomorrow, Thursday, June 29 around 1:00 p.m., with a slow drop in river levels after that.

To give citizens an idea of the range of predictions received in the past three days, this is the information received by the City:

On Monday, at 7:00 a.m., the river crest (maximum level) was projected to be 6 feet; at 9:00 a.m., it was revised to 15.3 feet.

On Tuesday morning, this was revised to 13.2 feet; at 11:30 a.m., it was changed to 18 feet; at 4:00 p.m., the ominous message that it would be 25.1 feet was received, which triggered a far greater preparatory response; as officials responsible for emergency management, we have the absolute duty to initiate major steps as and when a major flood warning is received.

Today, at 6:30 a.m. and again at 9:00 a.m., the prediction was again revised and affirmed to say 19.7 feet and at 11:10 a.m., it was changed yet another time to predict a level of 20.5 feet. (The National Weather Channel briefly posted an announcement of a river crest for 15.3 feet but National Weather Service representatives advised this was not accurate.)

In 25 years, this is the most significant series of varied river level forecasts ever seen and, as a direct result of yesterday’s 25.1 foot prediction, extensive activity --- and their costs --- were undertaken. Many residents and businesses also endured expense and effort to prepare for what was expected to be major flooding and, in some areas, evacuation.

The current prediction of 20.5 feet is subject to further change.

No one should assume we are “out of the woods”. There will still be flooding. Based on a 20.5 foot prediction, it is not likely there will be any evacuations but some streets will have street water and many basements will have back-up water. This will be especially true in the Shipoke Neighborhood. A large part of City Island, including the surface parking lots, will be covered by river water. The Paxton Creek and Spring Creek have a high potential of backing-up and creating localized flooding in their basin areas, which will also cause some street closures.

The flood warning bulletin issued Tuesday night, June 27, is therefore modified as a result of this new and revised forecast.

The City is asking the appropriate agencies to conduct a review of how the river level forecasts could vary so widely in such a short period of time to see if more concise and accurate predictions can be achieved in the future --- not only to prevent what turns out to be unnecessary cost and effort by local government and citizens but to avoid the inevitable doubt and skepticism that would arise if predictions lack public confidence.

_________________________
Mayor Stephen R. Reed

Posted by David at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I woke up this morning to good news, that the projected crest for the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg had been lowered to 19.7 feet. That meant no flood in Shipoke and no evacuation. That's what NOAA's flood chart on the Internet showed, but since I no longer trusted its accuracy, I phoned the Mid-Atlantic River Forecast Center in State College to verify. Happily, it was true. The forecaster told me that less rain fell upstate than anticipated. The phone rang and it was my neighbor, Ed Taylor, telling me he'd heard the news on the radio. He was as happy as us, though a bit chagrined because he'd had his carpenter, John, dismantle his new living room bookshelves to save them from what last night was forecast as a major flood. You have to understand that a crest of 29-30 feet, which the city had talked about last night, would have meant about four feet of water in our living rooms at this end of Shipoke.

But I'm not unpacking yet. A projected crest of 19.7 is too close to flood stage for me to be comfortable. The way things have changed over the past 24 hours, and given NOAA's now-acknowledged computer problems, caution is still advised. I'll hope for the best.

The latest is that Camp Lycogis, the Girl Scout camp in Sullivan County where my daughter Elizabeth and three of her friends are this week, is sending everyone home early because of high water. I got a call from the camp about 10 minutes ago explaining that high water from nearby Loyalsock Creek had cut off the campers from all of their activity areas. They were supposed to do whitewater rafting this week, but the water was just a little too white (and brown). Jeff Spangler, one of the parents, is going to pick up all the girls and their gear and bring them back to Harrisburg.

And the Shipoke chutzpah award goes to Char Magaro, who finished serving customers last night at her Bella Mundo restaurant, locked the doors and went home without apparently moving much of anything, not even the glass art by her daughter. Her restaurant was devastated in the 2004 flood. It would have been the same this time whether she moved anything or not. Thankfully, she won't face another disaster like that--as things stand now.

Posted by David at 06:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shipoke is up late tonight. The streets of the neighborhood are crowded with moving vans. Some people are moving their furniture into storage, which is probably a good idea if you can still find a mover who can do it for you. Flood insurance supposedly pays up to a thousand dollars to get your belongings out of harm's way. Mike, my neighbor, paid $600 plus tips to have his furniture hauled away. He paid double time. As Mike acknowledged, it's a gamble. If no flood occurs, he won't get any of that back. But I don't think he has much to worry about.

Around 11 p.m., I mixed myself a screwdriver and, like Lt. Henry, went for a walk in the rain. I thought about using an umbrella, but decided to let the rain wash away away whatever sins led to this disaster. Or at least the sweat I worked up on a hundred or so trips to the basement and up to the second floor with our stuff. The rain felt good. So did the screwdriver.

The Shipoke bad timing award goes to a new neighbor across Conoy Street, who just moved into his house. The Shipoke good timing but just barely award goes to Louise and Chris, who picked today to move out of the neighborhood to Baltimore. Chris works for Channel 21, and has a new job at one of the Baltimore stations. Louise was standing on her stoop watching the movers load the van, quite relieved to be exiting ahead of the flood waters. I envied her.

Posted by David at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This afternoon, after I wrote my last post, I noticed that the NOAA website was going haywire. Was down for awhile, then up, but when it was up it was goofy. One time it showed a river chart from hours before, another time from days before. Never the current one. I finally got a number for the Mid-Atlantic River Forecast Center in State College and called them to find out why they were having problems on such a crucial day. I had first called NOAA in Washington, D.C., but they weren't able to say.

The forecaster who answered said that their computer network was crap and should have been replaced a long time ago. He said the forecasters had been complaining for a long time, but that higher-ups were unreponsive. No money, they were told. No money. I told him the public in Harrisburg had come to depend on their website to know what was going on when floods threatened. He said the public was going to pay the price for NOAA's lack of attention to its network.

I then asked him what the latest crest forecast was for Harrisburg. Now at that time, I was expecting him to say 18-20 feet, because that's what the National Weather Service was saying and that's what the city of Harrisburg was saying. "25 feet," he said. I nearly fell off my chair. "At Harrisburg?" I asked. "Yes." I went to tell the city editor, Mike Feeley. This caused no small degree of consternation, because it was at variance with the official story. I called back MARFC and talked to another forecaster, who told me the same thing. I duly reported that news to the editors. I e-mailed Randy King, the city spokesman, to see what he'd heard. He finally got through to MARFC and confirmed the bad news himself.

Here is the latest chart, I think: read it and weep. And it may not stop at 25. The city is now saying the flood will crest as high as 30 feet, putting it just short of the devastating Agnes Flood of 1972. God help us if that happens. My wife and I have just spent several hours moving stuff up from the basement. Now we're starting on the living room. It's raining like Noah knew.

Posted by David at 09:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

According to the city of Harrisburg, NOAA is now predicting a Susquehanna River crest of 18 feet on Friday morning. Not that you could find that on the NOAA website. It began crashing and going haywire around midday today. If you could access it at all, it often presented the incorrect chart for Harrisburg. The last time I checked, it was showing the chart for June 8. I'm trying to contact NOAA to find out what's going on.

The city is beginning to plan for a 20-foot crest in case the weather forecast turns against us. If the water reaches 20 feet, evacuation of Shipoke would be considered, I'm told. Shipoke floods at between 21-22 feet. And it's raining again.

Posted by David at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm glad I hedged my bets in my last posting. The National Weather Service has reversed course once again and predicted a higher crest for the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg. Now it is saying the river will crest at 17.3 feet on Friday morning. That is slightly above the official Harrisburg flood stage, but well below the Shipoke flood stage of 21-22 feet. It might cause some basement flooding, however, at Race & Tuscarora Streets. And it doesn't leave much margin for error. I have a twinge of anxiety, but just a twinge.

At noon today, the river had turned brown, and tree trunks and branches were beginning to float by. But the river was still at about 5.5 feet, not even covering the sidewalk that runs along the bank. In other words, the guy in the photo at the top of this page wouldn't have his feet wet if he were standing in that same spot today. There is a lot of water yet to come. From the NOAA chart, it appears the river will start rising at about 8 p.m. tonight.

One of the deceptive things about living in a flood zone is that the weather can be nice here, or bad here, and it doesn't matter. It's the weather upstream that matters. On the Saturday before the Ivan flood hit in September 2004, the weather was sunny and warm, a truly beautiful day. We spent the day moving things from the basement and first floor to the upper floors, knowing that despite how nice it was outside, a wall of water was moving down from the north. That night, our stuff moved, we cooked off the food in our refrigerators and drank a lot. In the morning, we evacuated.

Posted by David at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While I've learned not to be over-confident when it comes to flood prediction, the forecast today is looking even better than yesterday. The National Weather Service is predicting a Susquehanna River crest at Harrisburg of 13.2 feet on Thursday evening, down from the 15.3 feet prediction yesterday. Given that the river is at about 5.5 feet now, a lot of water will be coming down to Harrisburg over the next three days. But it appears less and less likely to cause a flood in Shipoke.

Nevertheless, people are concerned. I was talking last night to my neighbor, Ed Taylor, and out of the corner of my eye saw a Fox 43 TV truck heading down Front Street. The TV crews will usually park down near the railroad bridge and let the reporter do a stand-up there, with the river in the background. I've seen it dozens of times. While I believe that overall, local TV does a good job of reporting the news, they tend to get carried away sometimes in flood reporting. This is not something that should be used to hype the 11 p.m. newscast. People in Shipoke want just the facts, which are dramatic enough by themselves without any help from the reporter or anchorman.

I tell newcomers to Shipoke to watch what the city of Harrisburg says about flood threats to get the most accurate and up-to-date data. If this minor scare became a real threat, meaning if the river stage reached 17 feet, the city would start delivering news flyers to mailboxes in Shipoke containing the latest forecast and helpful advice to prepare. Doesn't look like they'll need to do that this time, but I'll wait and see.

Posted by David at 07:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've lived in the Shipoke neighborhood by the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg (see name of this blog) long enough not to get overly worried when it rains hard. I've lived here since 1989, and I know it has to rain really, really hard for there to be a risk of the Susquehanna River coming over the top and into Riverfront Park. We moved here in May 1989, and the first month there was a week when it rained nearly every day. Water came up high, but didn't come over the top. Newcomers to the neighborhood understandably worry when the region gets hit by a hard rainstorm like it did Sunday, when Front Street in Harrisburg was awash in places.

That said, the Susquehanna River is going to come up a lot over the next few days. The linked chart is updated everyday at 4 p.m. My neighbor Todd VanderWoude, the general manager of the Harrisburg Senators, pays for a really good weather service (naturally for a team on City Island in the middle of the river) and says the word is that the river will crest Thursday morning at 15.3-17 feet, based on the watershed getting three more inches of rain today and tomorrow. Harrisburg's official flood stage is 17 feet, but Shipoke's is higher, 21-22 feet.

So we should be okay. We'll get to watch the water come up to within five feet of the park, and get to watch tree trunks and debris being swept down the river from upstate. My basement, thanks to some work done last fall by my able contractor, Randy Shreve, should stay dry. The only neighbor who might have cause to worry at 17 feet lives at the intersection of Race and Tuscarora, neighborhood lowpoint and location of the "first to flood" house. We'll all be ready to help Rod if it looks like that's going to happen.

Meanwhile, the city of Harrisburg, which takes floods seriously, was busy today moving barges out of the river (Mayor Reed's party barge was swept away in the 2004 flood, but later recovered) and moving the buildings in Riverside Village Park on City Island to higher ground. I also heard that the private marinas along the river were moving the boats moored there. Always pays to be prepared.

Posted by David at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Shipoke, the Harrisburg neighborhood by the Susquehanna River where I live, is famous for its Friday night Happy Hours, which are always happy but often last more than an hour. We took advantage of the warm weather that arrived late Friday afternoon to sit out on the back patio after returning from my daughters' school play at the Forum. An old political friend was among those who stopped by. He is well-connected to the current administration, and talked about State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee to take on U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum this fall. He was optimistic about Casey's chances, pointing out he has consistently led Santorum in the polls, usually by double digit figures. Of course, the real storm is yet to come when Santorum and the groups who support him began running negative ads against Casey. But about what? Casey is one of the genuinely "nice" politicians in the state and has earned his Boy Scout image. Of course, Ron Klink, the last Democrat to take on Santorum, had one of the highest pro-gun voting records among Democrats in the Congress, but the NRA turned on him with a vengeance. That wasn't Klink's only problem, but it didn't help. Casey needs to steel himself for what is ahead. He appears to have gotten a pass from moderate and liberal Democrats on the abortion issue. The Casey family is famously pro-life, but Democrats want so badly to defeat Santorum that many are willing to overlook that, my friend said. Now that Kate Michelman of the National Abortion Rights Action League has reconsidered her brief bid to challenge Casey for the nomination from the left, the way for him seems clear. The doubters can be won over with the argument that unless Casey beats Santorum, there is little chance for the Democrats to regain control of the Senate. And if the Democrats had been in control of the Senate this year, they can be reminded, the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court never would have gotten out of committee.

Posted by David at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I often walk to work at the Patriot-News from my home in Shipoke. On my stroll home Friday, I came out of Riverfront Park onto Front Street and thought I saw people standing in the street. As I drew closer, I saw a middle-aged woman laying in the street, moaning softly. No blood that I could see, but she was obviously in pain. Five or six people were clustered around her in case a car came, ready to slow it down and direct it around her. Traffic isn't much of a problem in Shipoke, but all it takes is one inattentive driver talking on his/her cellphone to cause a tragedy. They waited with her until an ambulance arrived. I later learned she was not from the neighborhood, but had apparently stopped to look at the Susquehanna River. Heading back to her car, she tripped off the curb and injured her shoulder. It's great to live in a neighborhood where people care.

Posted by David at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What does one write in his first blog entry? This will be a blog about American politics and culture, plus an occasional look at my neighborhood, Shipoke, which is by the river. Just like the title says.

Posted by David at 07:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)