Tag Archives: Amarillo drought

local news

Water, water everywhere … in Amarillo!

It’s been longer than many of us can remember when Amarillo city officials have fielded inquiries about what to do with excess water.

Greenways Lake is a privately owned playa at the far southwest corner of the city. Residents there asked the city for help in getting rid of the water. The city response? No can do. The water is the responsibility of the developers.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/29539795/lakes

Meanwhile, the city is having to deal with playas at other publicly owned sites, such as nearby McDonald Lake at the corner of John Stiff Memorial Park at 45th Avenue and Coulter Street.

I’ve got some interest in the McDonald Lake problem, as it sits just about 3/4-mile from my house — not that we’re in danger of flooding in my neighborhood.

Still, the rising water has closed the park entrance at the lake; water has inundated the walkway around the lake and covered up the park benches.

I feel for the city in having to deal with this problem.

We’ve endured years of drought conditions. We haven’t had this much rain since, well, many years ago.

As for residents living near the privately owned lake at the Greenways residential development, city officials fear the consequence of pumping water from private property and possibly affecting other residents.

It’s one thing to have practical knowledge of how to react to lack of moisture. It’s quite another to acquire it quickly when we’ve got too much of it.

 

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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.