Violent rain clickclickclicked against the window, the wind whistled, then paused, then bellowed with full fury, waking me. I couldn't see the water rising as I laid in bed, but I knew it was happening. The same tonight as the last several nights: rivers overflowing their banks, sewers backing up, manhole covers flying through the air.
Here in Des Moines, we're enduring flooding possibly worse than experienced in '93, which was the worst ever, a once in a lifetime occurrence, we were told. Now, as it happens again, the forecast calls for more rain. What happens next?
Punishing rains batter the entire Midwest, and where there's no flooding, there's worse: Four people killed by a tornado that swept through a boy scout camp.
Seventeen dead from the heatwave on the East Coast. Countless dead from the earthquake in China and the cyclone in Myanmar.
Brutally hot summers, freakishly warm winters. Maybe, we think, there's a reason for this, and maybe we have an idea what that reason may be, but we won't change how we live. We're lousy stewards of the planet, and even as it becomes obvious we've knocked the natural balance out of order, we continue to do what we've always done.
And the rain still falls.
