'My neighborhood is being destroyed to pacify his supporters': the race to complete Trump's wall

[DonViejo]

Samuel Gilbert
@samuelgilbert1
Sat 16 Jan 2021 07.00 EST

At Sierra Vista Ranch in Arizona near the Mexican border, Troy McDaniel is warming up his helicopter. McDaniel, tall and slim in a tan jumpsuit, began taking flying lessons in the 80s, and has since logged 2,000 miles in the air. The helicopter, a cosy, two-seater Robinson R22 Alpha is considered a work vehicle and used to monitor the 640-acre ranch, but it’s clear he relishes any opportunity to fly. “We will have no fun at all,” he deadpans.

McDaniel and his wife, Melissa Owen, bought their ranch and the 100-year-old adobe house that came with it in 2003. Years before, Owen began volunteering at the nearby Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, and fell in love with the beauty and natural diversity of the area, as well as the quiet of their tiny town. That all changed last July when construction vehicles and large machinery started “barrelling down the two-lane state road”, says Owen.

Once work on President Donald Trump’s border wall began, construction was rapid. Sasabe, a sleepy border town, located over an hour from the nearest city of Tucson, was transformed into a construction site. “I don’t think you could find a single person in Sasabe who is in favour of this wall,” Owen says.

The purpose of our helicopter trip today is to see the rushed construction work occurring just south of the couple’s house, as contractors race to finish sections of the border wall before Trump leaves office. Viewed from high above the Arizona desert, in the windless bubble of the cockpit, this new section of wall stretches across the landscape like a rust-coloured scar. McDaniel guides us smoothly over hills and drops into canyons, surveying the beauty of the landscape. Here, as on much of the border, the 30ft barrier does not go around; it goes over – stubbornly ploughing through cliffs, up steep mountainsides, and between once-connected communities.

more
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/16/my-neighbourhood-is-being-destroyed-to-pacify-his-supporters-the-race-to-complete-trumps-wall

[woodsprite]

1. Rushed sub-par construction is his hallmark

Maybe it’ll blow down the next time a hurricane comes up that way.

[Submariner]

2. Biden needs to send in welders with cutting torches

and take down every foot of wall that cuts through all the environmentally sensitive areas, and those sections going through the once connected communities. Racism cannot, and should not, be the excuse used as justification to damage the natural environment.

[Deuxcents]

3. I agree

Rip it all down..recycle materials, if possible , and use it on infrastructure projects. With 4 days left, he’s rushing to destroy this, the Navajo sacred lands and executions. An evil man but maybe we can turn some things around for the better.