Treacherous Ice Storms in Kentucky—What is Gaia Saying to Us?

Keeping with the theme of climate—and climate change—this time last year (January-end, 2008) I was in Louisville, Kentucky, unknowingly braving the devastating effects of an unseasonal tornado. Commanding a 100 mph wind, it tore up concrete and roofs off houses, uprooted trees and flung huge signs hurtling into cars. The tornado set down twice, once just metres from my friend’s house and knocked out the power in large sections of Louisville for days. How did I not know, you ask. It was night time and I’d never experienced a tornado before…And I was in Kentucky—not Kansas (LOL!). I remember huddling in the dark cold of my friend’s house for hours in the dead of night (while she worked the graveyard shift at the airport), writing to the flickering light of a candle, with a blanket wrapped around me to keep warm, and listening to the raging wind.

Flash forward to this past week (January, 2009), as Kentucky faces its worst-ever natural disaster: over 600,000 Kentuckians are without power (200,000 without water) following major ice storms that struck a large section of the Midwestern United States across nine states, including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Virginia.

Last week (January 25th and 26th) about two inches of ice covered trees, power lines and the ground. It snapped branches, uprooted whole trees, and spread debris and ice sheets across roads. Power was cut in over 1.3 million residents and businesses. The storm moved into the Northeast, dropping snow from Ohio to Main and ice in Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

Kentucky was the hardest hit in what is being called the worst power outage in that state’s history, and only months after Hurricane Ike ravaged the state. Governor Steve Beshear ordered the largest call-up of National Guard forces in Kentucky state history as over half a million homes and businesses remain in the dark, including close to 200,000 in Louisville. Said Beshear, “Because of the severe winter weather condition, this will be a much more difficult and dangerous restoration task than what we faced following Hurricane Ike.”

"Louisville residents on Sunday — without power for yet a sixth day in a row — described a city struggling to adapt to a new status quo. Fuel shortages and restrictions were common at the busiest gas stations. Along many city streets, entire rows of cars were frozen in place, trapped under fallen tree trunks and branches," reports James Snyder of the Times.

I have a few dear friends in Louisville and I hope they’re okay. I haven’t heard from some of them in a while, so I’m just praying that they are warm and safe. This too shall pass…

Power may not be restored until mid-February in the hardest hit areas of Kentucky and Arkansas. Meantime, people are trying to keep warm and many have fled to hotels (which are giving people a break in cost) or shelters. The ice storm has already caused over 40 deaths related to traffic hazards (e.g., slippery roads, faulty traffic signals, etc.), hypothermia, and carbon-monoxide poisoning. As the power outage continues and supplies run out, Kentuckians who can travel are being urged to go south out-of-state to warmer climates until power, water and associated services can be restored.

But, just as with the treacherous fog in Vancouver last week, Kentuckian photographers stepped into the chaos of the ice-damage to marvel at Nature’s cruel beauty…and take pictures.

Well, you knew I had to bring up my thoughts on climate change, didn’t you?

I posted several articles already that touch on this subject. I touched upon the chaotic nature and interrelatedness of climate and weather in my post on chaos theory. In two blog posts, “Climate Change & the Nobel Peace Prize” and “Blog Action Day—Truth”, I devote lengthy discussion to the dedicated work of Al Gore, his film, “the Inconvenient Truth” and generate lively discussion on the topic (check out the comments pages!). In “Tornadoes Connected to Global Waming?” I described my own personal experience with the historic unseasonal tornadoes in the US earlier this year and how some believe this is related to climate change and is a sign of more to come. In “Polar Cities” I describe Dan Bloom’s concept for surviving the aftermath of global warming and explore the need for paradigm changes. Then in “The Complexity of Nature” I discuss how perspective plays a role in our perception of both our future and that of our planet.

In my series on Climate Change, I quoted Clive Thompson of Wired Magazine in a compelling article on “How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds”. Thompson described the psychological phenomenon of solastalgia, coined by Glenn Albrecht (professor at the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle) as “The homesickness you feel when you’re still at home,” to suggest the impact of climate change on our mental health.

I left off with a discussion—actually a series of questions—related to “scale” and whether or not we should intervene, when everything that we are and do is PART of the global network already. Is it simply that we are being hubristic once again by seeing things from a strictly anthropomorphic view? Perhaps, it isn’t our place to succeed, but rather to secede to something more suited to what is yet to come… I’d like to think that it may be neither, rather that these global events will hasten our own evolution into a higher form—But, as with the last time I brought this up, I am getting ahead of myself…I promise to address this in a later post. I PROMISE.

Meantime, my burning question is this: What is Gaia saying to us? ...Or is the proper question: What are we saying to OURSELVES?

Because, aren't WE GAIA?...

Vancouver, Canada’s “Cloud City”

Last week an incredible veil of heavy fog blanketed the Lower Mainland and the City of Vancouver. It got the photographers snapping some incredible pictures and the newspapers soliciting them for those pictures like the ones posted on this site by thumper.

Vancouver and the Lower Mainland of British Columbia is no stranger to fog and morning mists, particularly this time of the year. But this last foggy phenomenon was just a little out of the ordinary in its persistence and generated a lot of buzz in the blogosphere and internet chats as a result.

There followed a whole lot of buzz last week when a close relative of the photo above (but not the same; you can see it in the clouds)--the top photo of a Vancouver sunrise in the clouds-- started appearing in email boxes and blogs across the city and worldwide eventually. The other photo eventually appeared in the Vancouver Sun last Thursday and was attributed to Scott Miller. Others attributed it to photographer Blair Kent. Obviously, a number of people took photographs from that same perspective. I don’t know who took this particular one, but it’s beautiful, as are the others I’ve posted below (sent to me by a friend and unattributed). If you are one of the photographers, please let me know and I would be happy to credit you. I’d be delighted to take you on board Vinnie and interrog—uh… interview you, even!

From Cooking South Dakota to Storming Wyoming

As I drove the wind-swept plains of South Dakota that rolled gently into the sweltering heat of the open plateau, I recalled telling my friend in Kentucky on the phone earlier that there wasn’t a speck of shade to be had—whereupon she’d laughed and reminded me that she’d warned me of just that very thing: east of Rapid City and the Black Hills there is no shade to be found. The next day, as I adjusted my Armstrong Air-Conditioning (e.g., I opened all the windows of the car), I had to laugh out loud when I spotted a sign on the interstate that advertized trees and shade. It was so hot that even the chocolate biscuit of my ice cream sandwich melted! When I checked later I found that the temperature had been in the mid nineties (34 degrees Centigrade), which is nothing compared to the record temperature for that time period of 109 degrees F (and that was just last year!).

As I entered Wyoming I almost immediately got into some "weather". I was barely past the welcome sign when I spotted a weather-advisory sign and remembered that I wasn’t far from “Tornado Alley” in eastern Wyoming. No sooner had I seen the sign when the wind picked up and dark clouds swept in toward me. Lightning struck several times. It began to rain. Then it pelted.

Tornadoes Connected to Global Warming?

Toto, I've got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore—Dorothy Gale

Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?—Edward Lorenz

Do you believe in fate? I must confess that there is more to my global warming nightmare than I had let on earlier. About a week before having that nightmare, I went to Louisville, Kentucky, to visit a friend recovering from an illness and during my short stay I experienced a winter tornado! I didn’t even know I was experiencing the ripping force of a twister until the day after, when I heard it in the news.