Tag Archives: Texas drought

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Fire season off to early start

Summer officially is about six weeks away and already fire season is upon us in the Texas Panhandle.

Oh … my … goodness.

A wildfire in Hutchinson County has left hundreds of people homeless and destroyed about 100 homes. The wind is whipping furiously; the native grass is tinder dry; burn bans are in effect all across the Panhandle.

http://time.com/95703/wildfire-hundreds-homeless-texas/

Remember the Summer of 2011, when thousands of acres of land went up in flames? Remember the misery, the heartache, the death and destruction? We might be headed for another one of those episodes.

Most of this circumstance is beyond our control. We need two things to happen: the wind to stop blowing and for rain to come. Only the Almighty can make either event happen.

We can, however, control our own urges, such as tossing cigarette butts or stogies our the car window. We can stop outdoor grilling. We can ensure that we take every precaution possible to prevent a tragic outbreak of fire.

There also needs to be highly strict enforcement of these burn bans. Let’s leave it to counties to make double-darn sure residents are heeding the dire warnings about the fire hazards that exist all around us. And that means simply to play by the rules and not light fires in this hideous wind.

The Fritch fire well might serve as a warning to us all. It’s still mid-spring — when the region is supposed to be drenched in those unpredictable rainmaking thunderstorms. Many of us can hardly remember the last time we experienced any such “normal” weather event.

Instead, we’re enduring this stifling drought and the wind that comes with it.

If this is a harbinger of the usual fire season, we’d better get ready for a wild summer.

Oh, and let’s all keep praying for rain.

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Wind velocity is relentless

This item came to me the other day from a longtime Amarillo friend.

Linda has lived in Amarillo all her life, she told me, adding that her mother grew up in southwest Kansas.

Neither of them, she told me, had seen it blow as it did on Tuesday, April 29. That event is sort of becoming our version of “Black Sunday,” which occurred during the — gulp! — Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

This is worth mentioning as we’re battling the wind and airborne dirt yet again today. It’s not as bad it was the other day, but my friend’s assessment of the severity of that wind-and-dirt event is still quite striking as we continue to pray for rain to end this merciless drought.

I should add that my friend’s mother is old enough to have some memory of the Dust Bowl. So, to learn that she believes the April 29 dirt storm was the worst she’d ever seen … well, that’s saying something.

OK, are we in the midst of Dust Bowl 2.0? Another friend, Richard, told us today at church that as bad as it has been — and as bad as that particular day had become — it was, after all, just a daylong event. This friend also is a lifelong Panhandle resident. He’s a man of the soil. Unlike me, a city slicker if there ever was one, Richard has worked the land on and off for most of his life.

Thus, I’ve heard two varying reports of the severity of what we’re enduring these days. One of them, from the latter friend, seeks to put this misery into some perspective. Yeah, it’s bad, he says, but think of having to go through these dirt storms for days, even weeks on end! That’s what occurred during the Dust Bowl and it’s a far cry — so far, I should stipulate — from what we’re going through today.

Whatever perspective you want to place around the Spring of 2014 weather, I’m still alarmed to hear others who’ve lived here a lot longer than we have say this is as bad as it’s ever been.

I’m more than ready for rain.

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Ready for tougher water-saving measures

It’s been reported that Amarillo residents haven’t yet subscribed to the water-conservation memo that’s been circulated.

We’re using water as if there’s no tomorrow. Oh yes, we’re in the middle of a drought that’s about four years old now and there’s no apparent relief in our immediate future.

What to do? Keep those “voluntary” restrictions in place? I’m beginning to think we need to get some orders from City Hall: Use less water or else.

I know that utility experts at City Hall are acutely aware of what’s happening around here. City Manager Jarret Atkinson happens to be a water expert in his own right. Still, the city keeps sending mixed messages. It says we should conserve water and then it says the city is in good shape, that it has enough water to last for, oh, about another 200 years. I sense that many of us are hearing the second part of that message more clearly than the first part.

The city has set monthly maximum water-use goals. Residents are exceeding those goals every month. Let’s remember, too, that summer isn’t even here yet.

The city has drafted a Stage 1 water emergency plan that calls for voluntary measures, such as watering lawns on certain days depending on whether you live at an odd- or even-number address; what’s more, you shouldn’t water your lawn more than three days a week.

That’s all fine. What happens, though, when you don’t comply? Nothing.

What should happen? Some fines might be get folks to stop using water. A more enforceable method might be to boost water rates, which is another way of hitting folks in the wallet.

It absolutely goes without saying that water is — hands down — the most precious resource we have. We cannot live without it. Nor can we continue to keep using it at the current pace.

If we cannot — or will not — comply with voluntary measures, it’s time for our local government to take the next step by ordering us to use less water.

The rain likely will return. No one on Earth can predict when that will happen. It might happen soon, maybe later, maybe sometime in our lifetime. Then again, maybe not until a lot longer after that.

What in the world are going to do until — or if — that day arrives?

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Hey, let's pray for some rain

Happy National Day of Prayer, everyone.

This is the day we set aside to pray. In reality, every day should be a day to pray. They’ll make speeches in Washington and in other places around the country. The president will make some remarks about prayer and how faith in God bolsters us when we’re down.

It’s been said the “least we can do is pray.” It’s also been said prayer is “the most we can do.” It shouldn’t be a last resort, but rather a first resort.

No matter which faith we follow, the power of prayer — while it is undefined — is there to be felt.

Those of us who live in the Texas Panhandle have a particular prayer, I’m thinking. It’s for rain. Other Americans today have had more rain than they can handle and they are praying today for the Almighty to make the floodwater recede and to give them relief from that misery. I wish that their prayers come true. Others are praying for strength as they struggle to recover from tornadoes that tore through their communities. Death has come to those places and we should pray for them as they battle through their grief.

For us, though, our needs are different. We’ve had precious little rain for, oh, about four years in a row. We’ve been suffering a different kind of misery. Blustery wind in recent weeks has kicked up dirt in volumes many of us who live here haven’t seen before.

We went through some kind of hell on Tuesday. There’s no other way to say: It was ugly out there, giving us just a dirty taste of what the Dust Bowl must have been like eight decades ago.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry drew some ridicule a couple of years back when he called on Texans to pray for rain. He made a big deal out of the power of prayer. The governor didn’t deserve the needling he got from critics over what he sought.

People of faith — and they comprise a large majority of us — rely on prayer to get us through difficult circumstances.

So, let’s pray for some rain today. Will it work? Will the sky open up as we ask God for relief? If it does, can we say without question that prayer had nothing to do with a positive result? I prefer to think we can proclaim that prayer works.

And if it doesn’t bring immediate relief, we also can assume God is at work — on his schedule.

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Looking more like Dust Bowl

As I write these few words, the sky is looking browner than I remember it ever looking … ever.

I’ll admit I’ve lived in the Texas Panhandle a mere 19 years and four months. My history here isn’t as long as many folks’ time on the High Plains. My wife and I do have enough of an institutional memory, though, to call ourselves fairly experienced in this region’s sometimes-strange weather.

Today it’s about as “strange” as it’s gotten during our time here.

The wind is blowing at a sustained 30 mph. It’s gusting to around 60 mph.

I sat this morning waiting for a friend to show up for a cup of coffee. I sat at a coffee shop literally at the edge of the city. The wind started to kick up and as I looked toward the southwest, across a large stretch of pasture, I watched the dirt begin to billow into the sky.

Then it rolled in atop us at the coffee shop.

And then — all at once — about a dozen cell phones began buzzing “storm alert” warnings … mine included. A collective laugh went up from the room. “No kidding. Dust storm? Who knew?” one woman muttered.

I won’t pretend to know what the Dust Bowl was like. I’ve read about, heard stories about it, seen documentary films about it. The pictures are hideous. The stories of suffering, hardship and death are even more so.

Still, the weather today is beginning to look a lot like those pictures.

When is this going to end?

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Is it windier and dryer than ever?

A particular sentiment seems to be creeping into more Texas Panhandle residents’ conversation.

It is that the wind and the dirt that is blowing through the air is “the worst I’ve ever seen” in the Panhandle.

I heard it yet again this morning at church from a 60-something friend who’s lived here all her life. Others have made similar statements to me for the past several weeks as the wind just won’t relent.

Here and there folks are suggesting the wind that’s howling and the dirt that’s filling the air remind them of the bad old Dust Bowl days.

I won’t go that far. First of all, the Dust Bowl occurred 70-plus years ago. Second of all, the footage I’ve seen of events such as Black Sunday defy description.

Setting all that aside for a moment, let’s just consider that we’re likely in for a prolonged dry spell. Weather forecasters aren’t giving us much reason to believe a radical change in the weather is coming soon.

We’re in the grip of a drought that’s entering its fourth year. We had a slight break in 2012 from the lack of rainfall. So far this year, our precipitation level is about a third of what it’s supposed to be. Our winter snowfall was a good bit below normal. Lake levels are receding, streams are dry and grass used to feed our cattle is hard to find. Thus, ranchers are selling their cattle under weight because they cannot afford the high cost of grain to keep them fed.

It’s a mess out there.

What’s the lesson here? Two things come to mind.

First, we need to stop worrying about the wind, suck on some throat lozenges and perhaps say a prayer for more rain. Does prayer work? Well, someone has to prove to me it doesn’t. Absent that proof, I’ll keep asking for some divine intervention.

Second, cities need to start talking more proactively about water conservation. Amarillo is beginning such a conversation, but officials are saying mandatory restrictions aren’t yet on the table. I’m not so sure that’s necessarily a wise course to take in light of this drought. City Hall needs to start talking loudly and often about the need to conserve water and it ought to prepare immediately to enact a mandatory plan if we don’t get relief in, say, the next 30 days.

Meanwhile, batten everything down, folks.

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This isn't the Dust Bowl, but …

I cannot even pretend to understand what Texas and Oklahoma Panhandle residents endured in the 1930s when the Dust Bowl blew their livelihoods away — and killed many folks in the process.

However, the dust that has been blowing the past few days is getting very tiresome and more than a bit worrisome.

Today was another one of those days when the dust blew in from the north and west over much of West Texas. The Weather Channel led with it on its early-evening newscast, replacing the late-winter snow storm that is pounding the East Coast.

How does this condition ever end?

Well, let’s look at the obvious solution: Rain needs to fall. A lot of rain would be good.

Two and a half months into 2014 and our rainfall deficit is beginning to look grim. We’re about half of where we need to be a this point in the year, according to the National Weather Service. The March winds that are well-known to us here in the Texas Panhandle have kicked in and the topsoil that hasn’t been dampened is being lifted into the air and taken to God knows where.

There might be some good news in the offing. I was visiting the other day with a water conservation district official who told me he understands there’s a “48 percent chance that El Nino will return this spring.” That means we’ve got a nearly one in two chance that the Pacific Ocean currents will bring more moisture inland, which is what the El Nino current usually does.

Of course that also means that we’ve got about the same likelihood of either the conditions staying the same or the La Nina current will take over, meaning even drier-than-normal conditions will prevail over the region.

Those of us who weren’t around during the Dust Bowl do not really grasp what the region’s older residents went through more than seven decades ago. The survivors of that terrible time no doubt remember how it used to be and may be shrugging their shoulders at what’s occurring today.

We all have a common desire. We need rain. Now!

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'Potty water' on tap next?

Eternal gratitude is what I am feeling at the moment that Amarillo isn’t in Wichita Falls’s straits regarding the availability of potable water.

However, as I read the story attached to this blog post, I am wondering if the day will arrive when Amarillo must do what Wichita Falls is about to attempt: treat sewage into drinkable water.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/03/14/5650516/dry-wichita-falls-to-try-drinking.html?rh=1

The thought is repugnant at so many levels. Wichita Falls, though, finds itself with few options but to recycle effluent into potable water.

The city of 104,000 residents has conserved water to keep from entering this next phase. Those conservation efforts, while they have helped tremendously, still aren’t enough. The city plans now to recapture 5 million gallons of wastewater it now is discharging each day into the Red River. It will treat it and reuse it.

The city will treat the wastewater and blend it with reservoir water. Big Spring is doing something similar, producing a blend of water that contains a 20-percent wastewater content. Wichita Falls will do a 50-50 blend of wastewater and reservoir water.

How has Wichita Falls’s population reacted to this idea? Not so great at first, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which reported: “Residents of the city … about 100 miles northwest of Fort Worth, were initially hesitant about drinking ‘potty water or toilet water,’ but they’ve realized it is one of the few alternatives left until the drought breaks, said city spokesman Barry Levy.

Until the drought breaks.

Therein lies some hope for all of us caught in this miserable weather cycle. There remains the promise that eventually — hopefully while we’re still alive to see it — the weather patterns will return to something approaching historically normal patterns. That means heavy downpours in the spring and early summer that should refill surface water reservoirs, replenish our aquifer and remove the incentive to use groundwater to irrigate our property.

I normally would be all for full disclosure of what my government is doing on our behalf. I’m not so sure that I would want to know if I’m drinking water that’s been flushed down my toilet.

As many wise men and women have said over many centuries: You gotta do what you gotta do.

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Punishing rain out west provides glimmer of hope

Texas and California have at least one thing in common.

They’re both places that have been starving for moisture. Happily — and that’s a relative term, to be honest — California has been inundated of late by rain. Lots of it has fallen in a short period of time over much of the state. It’s caused some mudslides and has damaged some homes and no one wishes that on anyone.

More is on the way.

Sitting out here on the equally parched High Plains, I cannot help but hope: Might our drought get some serious relief soon?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/01/us/california-mudslides/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

One of my sisters lives in Santa Cruz with her husband. Their travels to and from work and across the dreaded Highway 17 to the San Jose area have been fraught with the kind of hazard they haven’t experienced of late. Punishing rain has made driving a bit of a test of the nerves. Driving along Highway 17 in ideal conditions is a challenge.

Sis is up to it, though. She and her husband — not to mention millions of their fellow Californians — are welcoming the moisture. They need it badly.

So do we.

Weather forecasters here aren’t too optimistic about the short-term future regarding rainfall. They keep hedging their predictions on whether we’ll get significant moisture this spring or summer. Then again, I cannot blame them for trying to predict weather for the next hour, let alone for the next day, week or month.

Two months into 2014 and our rain deficit already is piling up. A lot of us are praying for rain, as in getting on our knees and praying. No doubt there was a lot of it going on in California as well.

Did the prayers bring the rain? It’s one of those things you cannot deny categorically.

So … I imagine we’ll keep praying out here and hope we get some of what has drenched the Pacific Coast.

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Irony involved with water savings, rate boost

There’s a certain cruel irony at work in some Texas cities.

City officials are encouraging people to conserve water and are mandating it in some places. The results have been a reduction in revenue to pay for water and other utility infrastructure. What’s a city to do? Increase water rates.

What is wrong with this picture?

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/02/10/texans-water-conservation-reward-higher-rates/

Amarillo hasn’t reached that fork in its road — yet. The city isn’t requiring people to water their lawns less during the spring, summer and early fall; nor has it put a ban on car-washing or running sprinklers so little children can cool off. It might do so down the road if this drought continues, as the National Weather Service thinks it will.

The Texas Tribune reports that Wichita Falls has become a victim of its own water-saving edict. “It’s tough to tell the consumer that ‘Yeah, well, you guys did a great job out there conserving water, but lo and behold, we got hurt financially, so we’ve got to raise your rates,’” assistant city manager Jim Dockery said.

Here’s how the Tribune is reporting other cities’ efforts to avoid the rate hikes: “Fort Worth’s goal, like that of many other cities in Texas, is to change its rate structure to avoid such ups and downs. Today, about 17 percent of the utility’s revenue comes from fixed monthly charges that all water customers pay regardless of how much they use; by 2018, (Fort Worth utility spokeswoman Mary) Gugliuzza said, 25 percent of its revenue will come from such charges. Dockery said Wichita Falls is considering a similar transition.”

My own take is that if the rate isn’t exorbitant, it should remain a small price to pay for continued water conservation.

This relentless drought is bound to cause some alarms to go off in the Panhandle, which is now relying exclusively on groundwater to quench its cities’ and towns’ thirst. The question is when. What’s more, when the alarm goes off and residents do what their cities tell them to do — use less water — how will cities respond to the accompanying loss of revenue?