It's all Water under the Bridge

Go to LakeDelton.org website and you'll see the following

Welcome to Lake Delton!

More than a million come to visit.

The lucky ones already live here.

1.5 million visitors come to the Wisconsin Dells-Lake Delton area each year.

And more and more of them choose to stay each year in the area blessed with scenic beauty and a wide range of man-made recreational opportunities for year-round enjoyment making it the Midwest's most popular vacation area.

Uhm, that was until last week this is. Last monday, Lake Delton emptied after one of it's sides breached, sending water into the Wisconsin river and in the process wiped out the County A road together with a few houses.

The good news is that nobody lost their lives when it happened. The bad news is the existance of the lake was THE attraction here. People will be wiped out in the economic sense. Imagine owning a Marina and lake side accomodation with no lake. Whilst some have business insurance, I don't think it would apply to this scenario. The same applies to unfortunate house owners who couldn't get an flood insurance.

See Chicago Tribune for more details. Note the appeal for previous Chicago visitors to come. I doubt many people will take them up on the offer.

The factor that stimulated this was the very wet weather that is impacting the wider region causing floods all over. Iowa is particularly hard hit with flooding in Cedar Falls and Many of the Great Rivers forecasting surges that will creast anyday now.

The flooding in Iowa will impact us all. 'Why do you say that - I'm nowhere near Iowa'. The reason is that region is a big supplier of corn and the floods have drowned the corn crop. 'But I don't buy much corn', you may say. Indirectly you do: It is key contributor for Ethanol which makes up 10% of gasoline (('oh no, there he goes again harping on about energy' I hear you say. Yes but only briefly) but it suppliers the farmers growing meat. Prices will go up and as direct result, corn hit record prices per bushel.

At this same time, Southern China is experiencing a major flood. Imagine 1 million people having to evacuate. (see BBC news). When it rains in Asia, it can have some spectacular results. I once visited Philippines in rainy season and had to go up the mountain area. It was not something I'd care to repeat and seeing the rivers now in torrents sweeping bolders like balls and the landslides, I can understand why the Filipinos are so religious: you could be very dead, very soon.

In nature, Glacial melt lakes have always been prone to bursting.In 1995,the Nepal Village of Ghat was destroyed.

Nawa Jigtar was working in the village of Ghat, in Nepal, when the sound of crashing sent him rushing out of his home. He emerged to see his herd of cattle being swept away by a wall of water.

Jigtar and his fellow villagers were able to scramble to safety. They were lucky: 'If it had come at night, none of us would have survived.'

Ghat was destroyed when a lake, high in the Himalayas, burst its banks. Swollen with glacier meltwaters, its walls of rock and ice had suddenly disintegrated. Several million cubic metres of water crashed down the mountain.

The same Guardian article that mentioned above says that in addition to the floods, there is a flip side to the glacial melt. Eventually less water leading to a drying up of the rivers leading to drought.

Lakes bursting and causing time major upheaval are not new. However, from the New Scientist was one that still blows my mind:-

Just over 8000 years ago, a huge glacial lake in Canada burst, and an estimated 100,000 cubic kilometres of fresh water rushed into the North Atlantic.

Researchers now say they know for sure that this catastrophic event shut down the Gulf Stream and cooled parts of the northern hemisphere by several degrees for more than a hundred years.

Is Gaia reseting herself? "It hot in here, lets puts on the air conditioning".

A bit more recent in that man supposidly witnessed it, the ultimate flood event has to be the Biblical flood. I'm not a theologian but the Black Sea deluge theory is supportive that this flood was the Black sea being formed by Meditterranean Sea spilling over at the Bosphorous. It would also explain why people seeking Noah's Ark are looking at Mount Ararat in Turkey.

I just did a Google Search and would you believe that 1st site it pulled up was "Noah's Ark Wisconsin Dells". The Address, 1410 Wisconsin Dells Pkwy N, Lake Delton, WI. !!!

YIKES: I've just found a Biblical link from the Lake Delton flood to Noah's Ark and I wasn't looking too hard for it! Maybe I am a prophet and should start up my own cult. Just need some gullible people now.

If this is the trend of Biblical history repeating itself can't say I am looking forward the modern day version of the 10 plagues. Water turned red, stinking rotting fish and all that. Wait a minute. It sounds a bit like California's Salton Sea.

Phileas Fogg,
Humid Houston (originally a swamp and was flooded in Tropical storm Allison), Texas.
15th June 2008.