No Such Thing As Climate Change?

You all have probably been watching weather reports across the country, and of course, saw the news about the tornadoes in Ballinger, San Angelo, and Abilene. I have been concerned about JUNE HASH CURRY who lives just north of Oklahoma City in Edmond. She and I stay in touch during these wild weather predictions. This morning after I texted her to see if they were missed by the storms, she responded thus:

"Thanks to God, all the damage we know of is three sections of our backyard fence. Thanks so much for your prayers. I know without a doubt they were heard." 

Last night I had asked her if she and Chris had a safe place to go, and she said "No special place to go other than a closet. All schools are closed and Chris’ dentist office called and canceled, so this area is really battened down. We are safely in God’s hands no matter what the storms do, so do not worry about us, sweet friend."

Sighs of relief. They were safe and so were three of my daughter's children. Ashlyn is in Amarillo. Their two "surrogate children" of whom she and her husband are guardians, Bruce in Amarillo and Annie in Stillwater, Oklahoma were all unaffected by the wild weather overnight.

I heard on the news last night that snow was predicted in Colorado. Surprised, but not thinking it would be in the area where GENE ROUTH lives, I was shocked when about fifteen minutes ago I received the following:

"I know you resident Texans have had tornadoes, rain, wind and floods but have you had a snow ‘Bomb' on May 21???"

Unbelievable, GENE! No snow bomb..no snow! In fact, I woke up hot this morning and checked the thermostat. My house temperature was still 78 degrees! I didn't think to turn the a/c down before going to bed.

GENE sent the following photos..

Beautiful pictures, GENE, but what is the temperature? Surely not freezing!

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DENNY HILL leaves tomorrow for his summer stay in Warsaw. He and I have had some pretty intense conversations regarding the Boeing 737 MAX planes that have had to be grounded. I said I would probably be hesitant to fly any of their planes after the horrible crashes and the resulting scandal about Boeing's management of their engineering and maintenance. DENNY said he assumes he will be flying on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, as that's the usual one he flies on. Happy summer, DENNY. (And safe flying!)

Anyone else have any photos to share? Graduations, weddings, weather, vacations? I hope to have wedding photos of my granddaughter's wedding coming up June 1st. Should be fun. Outdoors at daughter Carajean's Lake Travis home. I hear they are leaving the reception not by car, but by boat! 

Peace and good weather!

Marilyn

P.S.
Two more pictures from GENE:

I HEARD FROM YOU

I know some of you must read the blog, because some of you answered my request to let me hear from you. The first one is a followup to the climate change post. It's from my faithful reader, PAUL MOTA. He led an interesting life, but from the following I discovered it was also a little dangerous. At least to me.

"Just a quick story relating to earthquakes: 

In Japan we lived in a 3-story building, which supposedly was on rollers to absorb the impact of an earthquake. We could usually feel the movement, but we got used to it and it was hardly noticed after a while. After the third year we mostly ignored it, but at first it was scary. What was amazing was when we read the time of the quake, and sometimes we realized we had been on a railroad/subway at the time. It was amazing how the train stayed on the tracks."  It's amazing to me, too, PAUL! Lucky you.

While I was typing PAUL's story, I received the following from DENNY

HILL - another faithful reader:

"I distinctly remember, back in high school, when there was an enormous amount of water flowing over the dam in the park in Ballinger, much more than in your photo. The space below the dam was filled, and there were giant, very dangerous looking whirlpools, with uprooted trees, etc. And of course, some parts of the park itself were flooded.

"It is indeed strange...while I hear about the severe weather in parts of the middle of the country, here on Long Island we had almost no winter, in the sense of essentially no snow, except for maybe a couple of light ones that melted immediately."

I guess I neglected to give credit to the flood photos of Ballinger City Park. I found them on the Abilene Reporter News website, which had credited them to a photographer for the San Angelo Standard-Times. I did post some of my own flood photos when the park flooded during the time I moved back to Ballinger for the 50th reunion.

As for "almost no winter", DENNY, isn't that a pretty strong sign of "climate change"?

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On another note, my good friend JUNE HASH CURRY shared some news about her son Scott Curry's daughter Morgan. Her granddaughter Morgan will graduate from Oklahoma University in a couple of weeks with a degree in Public Relations. It really makes us grandparents proud - and optimistic about the future to watch our grandchildren grow and accomplish so much that will be beneficial to our country's welfare. Morgan is a beautiful young woman.. she could very well be a talented journalist in the near future..maybe on Television? She comes from such a kind, spiritual family that she would be a refreshing replacement for some of those in today's broadcast industry. 

Let me hear from more of you.

Peace and Love,

Marilyn

And the rains keep coming..

The weather has been crazy all over the country this spring. GENE ROUTH said they were lucky a while back when the so-called snow "bomb cyclone" in Colorado missed them. I emailed him to see if they were okay. He replied: "Snowing now, but the wind has not started. The blizzard last month was bad, lots of trees down and 5 to 6 foot drifts closed the roads all around us. Interstate 25 between Colorado Springs and Denver was closed for 24 hours, That caused major problems and Denver International Airport closed for 30 hours and cancelled about 3000 flights. We just stay home and listen to all the road and street and accident reports. Hope all is well with everyone."

Here in Austin we have had roller coaster weather, breaking records for high and low temperatures. We had temperatures in the 20s in March, with highs in the 80s. It has already hit the 90s in April. We do have cool nights though. We had over 3 inches of rain near my home below Mansfield Dam, with most parts of Austin in the 1" to 2" totals this past week. The storms were wicked sounding though. Lots of lightning. The strong winds, rain, and hail made horrendous noises on my metal roof. Almost kept me awake.

The rain total for Austin during the first week of April this year was nearly 5 inches. Those were historic numbers, and caused quite a bit of local flooding. Luckily, the Low Water Crossing on our road where the Sheriff's Deputy drowned in 2015 Tragedy Along With The Good stayed open. April is not over yet, and we are due for more rain beginning Tuesday. At least our Lakes are full -- but now we hope they don't reach flood stage like last year.

NANCY THOMPSON BAKER told me about the Ballinger City Park flooding this past week. 

(Elm Creek Dam overflowing April 24, 2019)
(Below: Foot Bridge in City Park)

The storms that pushed through San Angelo/Ballinger as well as Austin this past week continued on causing devastation as they moved to the East Coast. Thank goodness, we didn't have tornadoes like those that followed the path to East Texas and beyond. I didn't wish to hide in my closet again!

I know we have always had bad weather, but somehow it seems to be worse than I remember from the past. Did Ballinger City Park ever flood when we were in school? The only thing I do remember that was weather-related was the San Angelo tornado that happened shortly after I moved to Ballinger with my family in 1953. Lake View Tornado My dad drove us to Lake View to see the devastation. That's the only time I've ever witnessed anything like that.

I don't ever remember earthquakes in our part of the States. I found this statistic that just amazes me: "In the past decade, Oklahoma, which used to have just one or two earthquakes per year, saw their number rise to more than 800. Texas saw an earthquake increase of 600 percent.Nov 28, 2017" JUNE HASH CURRY has often spoken of the many "minor" earthquakes where she lives in Edmond, Oklahoma. Even a "minor" quake would set me on edge! Apparently, they are attributed to the "fracking" taking place in the surrounding area. Just another example of human activity contributing to the changes in our planet's conditions such as climate, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, volcanic activity, etc. 

But then, so many of our politicians keep telling us there is no such thing as "climate change"! I wonder where they live. Give me your thoughts on this subject, please.

Thanks to NANCY for the update on Ballinger's floods. Her good news was that she and husband Jake attended their grandson Spencer Jones' wedding to his fiancee Nikki this past Saturday. She said it was a beautiful affair. I'm hoping someone shares pictures of the ceremony with her, so I can share with you!

I always enjoy emails from any of you. I hear from JUNE CURRY, DENNY HILL, NANCY BAKER, and TRUMAN CONNER more than anyone. Surely some of you have grandchildren (or even great-grandchildren) graduating, getting married, or having babies you would like to brag about. Send me your news and any photos you wish to share. I know a lot of you are on Facebook and get class news from there. However, many of us are not on there! Think about it.

Until next time..

Peace and love,

Marilyn