It Can't Rain All the Time

Here in Atlanta it has not stopped raining long enough for the pavement to dry in nearly six days. Bridges have been washed away. The Chattahoochee river has overrun its banks and a neighborhood not far from where I attended high school is underwater. Schools and highways have been closed. The department of public safety is urging people to stay home from work as if this were an ice storm. Some neighborhoods have had all of their roads flood, effectively trapping the residents in their homes. Someone on the radio estimated fifteen billion dollars in damage. Three people have died.

Though it is supposed to slacken in the next forty-eight hours, NOAA anticipates the rain continuing through next Sunday.

This whole week is a testament to T.S. Elliot's thoughts on the nature of disaster, of whimpers instead of bangs and we are all watching a natural disaster unfold around us in slow motion.