Midwest Flooding Update…
In case you hadn’t heard, pretty much the entire Midwestern region of the US has been hit with near record flooding in recent weeks. This is due to above average snowfalls in the Northern Midwest states this past winter and further complicated by an overly rainy spring and early summer months for pretty much the entire region. I believe that we are something like 15 inches of precipitation above normal for this time of the year. Much of this years flooding has occurred several hundred miles north of us in Iowa, which to some extent has saved the St. Louis area. Nearly the whole state of Iowa has been impacted by the flooding–this morning on the local news, they announced that 80+ counties out of the states 90 some odd had been declared disaster areas. While the flooding is impacting the St. Louis area, we are not directly impacted by the flooding. We are far enough away from the Mighty Mississippi River that we have no worries. Many of the little river towns (towns either directly on the river or very close to the river) have been completely flooded out or isolated because of the rising river, but we live on a bit higher ground and are at least 40 miles away from the river… So for those of our readers not from the area, you don’t need to worry about us, we are doing just fine! While the road closures due to the flooding create some interesting drives to and from work, this is really about the only impact that we feel currently. Since this region is a very big farming region, and all of the regional crops have been lost for this year, we will most likely see incredible prices like never before for many food items.
With gas prices at all time highs here, they announced this morning that gas prices would go up another 10 cents in the next two weeks due to the fact that we will have a grain shortage this year. This will make the price of Ethanol (which is added to our gas) go up drastically, which sort of defeats one of the reasons we started adding Ethanol to gas in the first place–PRICE! So, since the Ethanol is going to be so much more expensive, why not stop adding it to the gas? Well, we would be using 10-12 percent more gas if they eliminated the 10-12 percent Ethanol, but it is pretty amazing how much better cars run on gas that doesn’t contain Ethanol. They used to only add Ethanol to the gas in the winter months, but now it’s pretty much all you can get any time of the year. Yet another way for the PetroChemical companies to stretch and water down gasoline to make even more profits! Well, enough ranting about the gas prices, they are what they are, and when the tank is empty, you have to fill it up…
Our hearts go out to the many people across the region who have been directly impacted by the flooding! This flood is the worst one that I have seen, and can only be topped by the great 200 year flood which happened in 1993. Hey, these are only supposed to happen every 200 years–just goes to show how unpredictable Mother Nature can be!
The local St. Louis TV station KSDK has a lot of information and pictures about the area flooding…
Here are a few pictures from earlier today taken in the Downtown St. Louis area.
