The Sam Whitmore Sampler

Drought

It's the worst in 50 years. Much of the U.S. is in drought; see this NOAA map. Here in Massachusetts we had an exceptionally dry August -- but nothing like Alabama, which is suffering like nowhere else in America. The orange denotes moderate drought, red severe drought and purple extreme drought. ABCNews.com ran this piece in June, stating that 78 percent of Alabama's pastures are in poor or very poor condition, as are 48 percent of it peanut crop and 68 percent of its cotton crop. The State of Alabama has declared a water emergency in 53 of its counties.

Perhaps you don't care. This Southeast drought story received only 7 Diggs in 67 days.

China: Parched, Polluted, Paradoxical

Congrats to the New York Times for today's chilling article about drought and pollution in China. The bigger takeaway, for me at least, was how little control Beijing has over the provinces. Imagine if U.S. state governments struck their own deals with corporations to build dams, factories, bridges or whatever,  flouting Federal laws in the process or bribing enforcers into silence. That's what's going on in China.

That China is polluted isn't news. But things clearly are spinning out of control and, paradoxically, no one seems to be in charge in the world's largest police state.

Dean, Pt. 3

OK, so I'm a hurricane freak. Now Dean is ashore in Mexico as a Category 5. Mexico invested a lot in its Costa Maya region: its claim to fame is a new pier that can accommodate up to three modern cruise ships simultaneously. I wonder whether it was built to withstand a Cat 5 hurricane with a 30-foot storm surge. We'll soon find out.

The Mayans surely didn't build their temples that way. Or did they? Today they face their toughest test ever.

Dean, Pt. 2

It really wasn't so bad! How about that? Dean gradually drifted south enough to spare Jamaica a direct hit. No one died and the flooding never materialized. I love being wrong like that.

I got a kick out of this dispatch, from Associated Press:

George Lee, mayor of the Portmore community near the Jamaican capital Kingston, said appeals to evacuate went unheeded. Some islanders said they were afraid for their belongings if they moved to shelters.

"Too much crime in Kingston. I'm not leaving my home," Paul Lyn said in Port Royal, east of Kingston.

Hurricane Gilbert in Jamaica, 1988

Hurricane Gilbert was just about as strong as Dean when it hit Jamaica head-on on Sept. 12, 1988. This report describes Jamaica's Gilbert experience in grueling detail.

Category 4 Gilbert traversed the entirety of the island, killing 45 and causing US$4 billion in damage, about 40 percent of it to agriculture. Shelters in urban areas saved lives, but sanitary conditions deteriorated as rural survivors poured in after the storm. Looters stole food stockpiles from local distribution centers before they ever reached the shelters. America and other nations donated goods, but Jamaica lacked the trucks and passable roads to distribute them.

Then there was flooding. Luckily, because the hurricane's eye passed directly over the island from east to west, most of the storm's rain fell at sea. Even still, Gilbert's defoliating winds damaged the root systems needed to sop up the rain water. I'll bet flooding is the big story out of Dean, especially if its eye passes to the south of the island which most experts expect.

Dean, Pt. 1

Jamaicans will have a Sunday they'll never forget.

Another Oakland Earthquake

Early this morning the Oakland area experienced a minor earthquake, 3.2 on the Richter Scale. This Google map shows the epicenter to have been less than a mile from our house.

One of these days, I'm tellin' ya...

Meteor Showers

They peak this coming Sunday night. The sky will be as dark as it can get, thanks to a new moon. We can expect to see one shooting star a minute, all night long. Look first to the northeast. Click here for viewing tips.

Molokai

Christy and I were married July 22 on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Only 38 miles long and ten miles wide, Molokai has no traffic lights and no buildings more than two stories high. It's a deliberately sleepy place whose natives fight hard against the commercial forces that have transformed Oahu and Maui.

We spent 11 happy days on Molokai but came away fearing for its future. Water is so scarce. The satellite photo clearly shows that the northeastern part of the island is lush, but western and southern sections are parched and dry. This year all of Molokai is wracked by drought. And the Molokai Ranch, a corporation that owns 40 percent of the island, is lobbying to divert water from the east to help develop luxury homes and commercial properties that few natives want.

Exploitation is nothing new to native Hawaiians. More on that tomorrow.

Today's Oakland Earthquake

We were sleeping less than a mile from the epicenter of an earthquake that struck the East Bay this morning. It was 4.2 on the Richter scale. Here's a Google Map of the affected area.

There was no damage here at the house and we didn't lose power, though thousands did nearby. At first I thought someone had fallen out of bed and thumped the floor. Then I realized no one in the house weighed enough to make that sort of a thump.

It was the first earthquake I ever experienced so I'm no expert, but it seemed like more of a one-time jolt than a sustained "roller." That probably explains why we could be so close to the epicenter and be so unaffected.