You don't have to be crazy to live here, but it helps.
<blockquote>The city pulled the plug on the Northeast Water Reclamation Facility at 10:46 p.m. Thursday, after thousands of households and businesses in the city’s most low-lying areas were without power, flooded and unable to leave. Residents in northeast St. Petersburg, a quarter of the city’s total population, were told they could not flush the toilet, shower or put anything down the drain for at least 48 hours. The city had warned that sewage may back up into people’s homes and businesses and create sanitary sewer overflows. Public Works Administrator Claude Tankersley said raw sewage came up through 20 manholes throughout the city, mostly in the northeast with one report for the southeast.</blockquote>
Cool.
None of this is a surprise. We've known about this for decades.
Yet, we've done nothing.
Why? Greed. Power. Ambition. Ideological blindness.
And it is only going to get worse.
Even now, you'll find state leaders, nearly all of them Republicans, kind of bragging on how Florida is "leaning forward" into "resiliency."
Yeah, when they're not fighting abortion amendments, banning books, going after trans kids, de-funding public schools, chasing after their personal political ambitions.
We've squandered all of our best opportunities to take proactive steps as the problem grew larger and the available solution set shrank. All that's left now are "too little" and "too late."
But denial is a powerful drug, and we're not going to face that reality either.
All we can do now is eat this shit sandwich.
And, as always, the more bread you have, the less shit you have to eat.
Originally posted at Nice Marmot 06:22 Saturday, 28 September 2024