Sandy's NYC Epicenter, Impact Overshadow Continuing Drought, Joplin, NO, CO Fires, More

[hatrack]

While the spotlight is on Sandy, however, let's not forget the weather victims who've become yesterday's news. The people who lost their homes in Colorado's super-fires are still hurting. Wildfires burned a record 8 million acres in the United States last year and more than 6 million acres through August of this year. NASA scientists say wild fires will get worse in the years ahead.

The historic drought is still underway. In the mountains of Colorado where I have a home, wells are running dry. The drought is affecting 80 percent of the country's farmland, bankrupting farmers, ranchers and small businesses, destroying crops, and killing livestock. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says families everywhere will start to feel the ripple effect next year with higher prices for beef, pork, poultry and dairy products. Meanwhile, water levels are still dropping on the Mississippi River, impacting billions of dollars freight normally shipped by barge.

In parts of New Orleans, the damage remains depressing seven years after Hurricane Katrina. In the Lower Ninth Ward, citizen groups are working to restore their neighborhood, but there are still more boarded houses and empty lots than new homes. Last August, Hurricane Isaac flooded communities along the Gulf Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi. Communities in the Midwest and Southeast are still putting themselves back together after the outbreak of monster tornadoes last spring -- the year's first billion-dollar disasters. Joplin, Mo., still hasn't recovered from the tornado that tore it apart back in May 2011. In his first post-election news conference last month, President Obama said he plans to begin "working through an education process... the conversation across the country about what realistically we can do long-term to make sure [the impact of climate change] is not something we're passing on to future generations..."

EDIT

The entire congressional delegation from Kansas cosponsored legislation last year to forbid the federal government from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and to limit the power of states to do so. Today, severe drought is underway in 100 percent of Kansas; in 78 percent of the state, the drought is ranked "extreme."

EDIT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-s-becker/still-hurting-in-the-heartland_b_2302768.html

[pscot]

1. Thank god for the Ogalalla