The weekend discoveries bring the total number of deaths nationwide from Hurricane Ike to 67, according to The Associated Press. The 600-mile-wide storm caused flooding as far north as Illinois.
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Aerial spraying has begun to fend off massive numbers of mosquitoes that make search options almost impossible.“A great deal of debris was washing out to sea, and some of the missing may never be found, unfortunately,” Reed said. – Grisly finds put Houston-area Ike death toll at 32, Houston Chronicle, September 30, 2008
The mosquitoes have manifested here as well.
They are about twice the size of normal mosquitoes, which is probably a result of spending their larval state in nutrient-rich pools, and they attack clumsily like zombies.
But they are aggressive. Swat one and it will bounce back, and keep charging right at your heart.
They make working outside very, very unpleasant, in part because they don’t care if you use mosquito repellent. They are like guided missiles, albeit dumb ones.
It can make your throat cough, eyes itch, head pound, or leave you alone.
The menace is mold, and it’s ravaging water-damaged homes and buildings all over Galveston in the island’s latest battle wrought by Hurricane Ike. – Mold has gotten a head start, Houston Chronicle, September 29, 2008
Not just in Galveston. You can smell it here on the air, half of it coming from homes and garages that were ravaged by stormwinds and rains, and then not dried out because power was out. When mold gets a beachhead, it takes a lot to kill it.
We went through a couple bottles of bleach on exterior walls and even inside the house. I respect bleach, but I don’t like it. It is caustic and horrible, but when you are dealing with resilient dumb lifeforms, caustic and horrible is what you need and will enjoy. Bleach is biochemical napalm.
There are still giant piles of dead vegetation everywhere. The town next door has not banned outdoor burning, which might be cool for getting rid of a few piles of leaves here and there, but it is being abused now. People who are taking money to accept lawn detritus are burning it in half-acre piles, with five or six going at all times, so the air is constantly spicy and irritant with smoke. This has been going on since the storm.
A temporary burn ban might be a really good idea, especially since these guys are not checking too carefully and seem to be tossing lawn debris including caustic plants like poison ivy into the mess. Fire doesn’t clean as much as people think it does, and if even a little bit of plastic or paint gets in there, the smoke gets even worse. It’s also thick because the vegetation is still wet, and hangs in the air because it’s humid, although that’s changing as fall creeps around the corner.
The vegetation reminds me of the single biggest reason why this storm has been so bad. Over the last decade, the services our city uses to trim trees back from power lines have declined in quality. They used to use lawn and tree care people who were experienced. Now they’re getting people who stumbled into the job and will work it cheap.
Their method of trimming trees back from lines was to clear-cut vertically on both sides of the power lines. Problem: while this makes the lines look clear of limbs, as any experienced tree maintainer can tell you, this makes unstable trees because they are unbalanced. They will not necessarily fall toward their heavier sides. In fact, because they will lean to the heavier side and then whip back, they may fall in the opposite direction — toward the power lines.
If you want to know why most of Houston lost power for over a week, it is that we “saved money” in trimming trees. There’s a management lesson in this, which can be summarized simply as: if you don’t do a small job right, it becomes one of those details you stumble over when you least expect it.
With the washing away of the old, decaying of the feeble, and introduction of new growth in their places comes new bugs. This praying mantis has obviously been around for awhile, but I haven’t seen a specimen this large or this beautiful for some time. Color me impressed. I apologize for my profoundly mediocre photography.
When I was visiting family some time ago, one of these guys — a little smaller than this one — landed on my chest and spent about ten minutes with me while I consumed ice cream. It was a surreal bonding moment. They’re a lot like us, just buggier and leggier. And in tribute to nature’s brilliance, they eat all the bugs I really dislike.