Flood things I'm not going to say

I'm not going to bore you with details about a 1928 law allowing the Corps of Engineers to blow the Birds Point Levee. I'm not going to point out that saying that you've been to Cairo and yeah, a bunch of farmland is well worth saving to let the city drown, is really quite astounding when you're the Missouri Speaker of the House. I'm also not going to point out that the folks who decided to farm down in Mississippi County did so at their own risk and should have taken this phrase to heart: "It's called a floodplain because it's a plain. That floods."

And I won't point out that saying, as many folks in my state are saying, flippant things about residents of Cairo and how they should have seen this coming is the pot calling the kettle black--and actually, there's more truth in that than many would like to admit, since Cairo is 2/3 African-American and most of the children live below the poverty line and many folks have nowhere to go, or little means of getting there. It is true that flooding Birds Point will destroy acres--hundreds of thousands of acres--of "prime Missouri farmland" but I don't think I need to point out that WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT FARMLAND IF ONE OF THOSE CHILDREN DIE? And I suppose many Missourians still look across and over into Cairo and think, "They're poor, they're black, let them drown." Because these days, I don't put that past any of the God-fearin' tea-partyin' gun-totin' history-revisionist dipshits overrunning my state. And I don't have to say that it completely nauseates me.

On the other hand, a much smaller, weaker hand, I won't bring up the fact that Cairo is built on alluvial soil and if it were being founded today, it wouldn't have been (it would probably be some kind of hideous national park you wouldn't want to visit due to the swamp and mosquitoes).

I won't point out that flooding on the Ohio is especially scary when you consider the uranium enrichment plant upstream from Cairo.

I won't promise that blowing the levee at Birds Point will save any of that. Because who knows? The Corps of Engineers doesn't have the best reputation along the rivers. And we have screwed with Mother Nature long enough that she's ready to take back the levees and the floodplains and all of it.

What I will say is that sand boils have started to appear along the earthen levee around Cairo and my husband calling me from work sounds more and more urgent, although what I'm supposed to do about sand boils I'm not sure, so he called his mom after our last urgent conversation because, now, she could do something, although not about the sand boils, but she could pack up the last stuff she wanted to save and get out of town as the mayor is calling for in his last urgent fax that isn't a mandatory evacuation yet but I'm really not sure why he's waiting. Sand boils. Indigo Bunting asked me just now if that's a noun or a verb. A noun, but a verb there--sand is boiling--is probably appropriate.

Cairo is below the water right now. Sand boils, if they succeed in their intent (the boils, that is) to compromise the levee, will cause the city to fill with flood water. Like 18 feet of flood water.

Maybe it will all be fine. But I'm not going to say that, either.