Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

The heavy rain actually came in here early in the morning . We normally take a back road to Fairfax Hospital. We were turned back by two police cars who were stopping cars from driving through the road which was flooded by a swollen creek. We had plenty of time do we diverted to another route. We’ll be here all day. I have two Kindles and an iPad .., I know how to wait.

John, just a reminder that the flooding in the mountains can be just as bad as in coastal areas. I drove through Pulaski, Virginia when a flash flood from a severe thunderstorm had flooded the downtown. Asheville offers a lot of opportunities, of course.

As Debby moves north the projected rainfall varies greatly. Over the next day, Northern Virginia is projected to get a little more than an inch of rainfall. As for the day after that, I’m not sure. Maybe more of the same.

John,

I’m hoping that none of that water finds its way inside your home. Stay safe.

I’m glad you still have power.

Larry

Carol, I don’t know where my message of condolences went to, but I am also so sorry for your loss.

A hard week last week. The move in to our apartment in our retirement community on Monday was the least of it. On Tuesday, we met with my wife”s oncologist to go over her recent PET scan. Her cancer has spread pretty extensively. Surgery is scheduled for this Friday to insert a Mediport. Chemo again begins on the following Monday with a new chemo drug added. We have not shared all of this too widely, just with some family and a few friends. And not on Facebook, which opens it all up too widely to the world. Bookish people do a better job of keeping information closely.

One of the things that global warming does is to make the weather more variable. I think that people in both Texas and North Carolina (and many other places around the world) are experiencing that.

Carol, you are so right. The movers pull the furniture and other items out of storage and move them into our apartment … a second firm associated with the movers does most of the unpacking. I think our job is mainly to stand around and pleasantly say where we want things. Custom bookshelves and closets are supposed to be finished today … that is cutting it close., but it did look almost finished last night when we checked.

It’s amazing what you can get with a little digital negotiation, John.

The storms beat up the islands … and the islands (any land) beat up the storms. Still watching the Atlantic for formation of new hurricanes… nothing yet, thankfully.

John, Asheville in the summer can be so nice. The humidity is so much lower. And then there are the great restaurants… that are good anytime of the year. We have several friends who have retired there!

Hurricanes like Harvey, which linger for days over land, are even more rare than the new rapidly intensifying hurricanes, like Beryl. That is really good. Few areas can take 50 inches of rain being dumped on the, over two or three days.

We have been packing intensively and doing all things associated with packing for much of the last week. A downsizing company comes on Monday to take away the things we don’t want … a moving truck comes on Tuesday. We will be staying with our son for three weeks until we move into our apartment in our retirement community on 29 July. On top of this, we are dealing with a reoccurrence of my wife’s cancer. We are surrounded with family and friends who are helping us. So yeah, Life is Good.

Thinking of you, Cynda, and praying and hoping that you come through this okay.

Cynda,

My uncle moved down to Beaumont to work as an engineer in the late 1950s. My cousins (his children) live in the Houston area now. So I follow the storms that threaten that part of Texas.

When Katrina hit, I had all the satellite imagery people in USDA reporting to me. We had a busy few days trying to come up with estimated of the damage that affected agricultural products and ports out through the ports.

Larry

One real difference in recent Hurricanes, and this is especially true for those in the Gulf is the rapid intensification. I don’t think that the Hurricane models of a decade ago captured this. It means that you may have much less warning for a major storm.

John, I had expected at least one major Atlantic hurricane by now. As each week goes by, it’s one less week of Hurricane season. Still a long way to go!

There are areas where the coming water problems are predictable and other areas where they are much less predictable. The rising sealevel is going to make the coast from the NC coast down to Miami, FL much more costly and much more risky, especially due to hurricanes. That’s pretty predictable … even if some state legislatures want to deny what is going on.

John, back to the water woes in your neck of the woods. In Northern Virginia, it has been very dry … about a quarter of an inch of rainfall in June until yesterday when there were major thunderstorms. We’re at the beach (Rehoboth, Delaware) until tomorrow, and those same thunderstorms arrived here late last night. But on the subject of rain and water problem, I have been careful for a long time when it comes to making a choice about where to live. I don’t want flooding but I do want access to water for living. That can be complicated. In the Raleigh area, Cary has experienced massive growth but it has water rights issues that Raleigh itself doesn’t have. A good number of Cary homeowners have had wells dug just for watering their lawns and gardens.

I saw video of the Stonehenge protest… really silly in terms of having little effect on desired goals.