http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/06/21/3-die-in-wis-crashes-after-rain-washes-away-road/

Now I pave all my land. We both get an inch of rain. 5 minutes later, I am drained, and he has two inches to deal with. Uh oh. 

Now we get a freak rainstorm. 10 inches. 5 minutes later, he has to deal with 20 inches. I’m fine. His home is floating down the river. 

See the issue? So. Let’s say I run a hospital. Then I might be justified in inflicting this risk on people downhill from me. Let’s say I’m running an outlet store. Shoudl I be allowed to pave? 

These rains will happen again, you know. 

It really does seem that many conservatives sleep well at night because they have no idea the destruction and torment they cause others through their ignorance and general stupidity.

We’re all to blame for not acting on the evidence a long time ago, but let’s face it, the conservatives (republicans, libertarians and bluedog democrats) have been the ignorant roadblocks to even just getting started on sane energy policy.

We should have had a “Manhattan Project”-style project for more sustainable energy years ago.  But, I’m sure the conservatives would block that initiative even to this day.

Our only hope is to vote them all out of power as soon as possible.  Or, at least those of us who can see what’s going on try to do so.

Let’s say Duluth turned into a city of hard-core tree-dwelling eco-warriors.

Do you seriously think there would have been no trees damaged by the storm in such a situation? No gardens or fields wiped out by flooding?

Maybe you do. Maybe you think that tornadoes seek out trailer parks and floods seek out highways IN RETRIBUTION.

What I have seen is many people having to tip-toe carefully around sober facts because conservative idiots start having hissy fits otherwise.

Last year, my corner of Illinois got that much rain in that short of a period, and this year we’ve gotten about two inches in the last three months, after a good chunk of one of our towns was wiped out by an EF5 tornado.  Yet, you wouldn’t want to be so foolish as to suggest that mankind had anything to do with the weather extremes, not unless you want to hear a lot of snark about Al Gore and Obama.

Oh, and some of the streets in Cairo, IL have looked like that for a year now.

The biggest problem is with the private property damage.  Duluth hasn’t had any kind of flood at all for the last 40 years, so no one in Duluth has flood insurance.  My family is all okay, but I have some friends who will spend the next ten years or more paying to clean other people’s poop out of their houses.

First to address some small errors:

1- There are areas where  10 inches happened in more like 24 hours.
2 – The seal did not make it to downtown Duluth. There where two seals that made a break for it (and a polar bear) but they came nowhere near downtown.
3- Part of Duluth (West Duluth area) is actually near.. right alongside.. a fairly big river, the St. Louis and it flows into Lake Superior. Those seals almost make it to to the river btw

- Oh and Grandma’s Marathon does not go up the hills, but along the lakeside.

As to the damage, what Paul Huttner says is all accurate, but it kind of misses some non-meteorological points. Not all, but a lot of the damage to the streets is surrounded either around areas where our many streams and creeks flow down to the lake, or in areas where wetlands have been built over. Over the last 100 years or so, many of the creeks where diverted into culverts and then buried under the streets. So when you have a huge amount of water in such a short amount of time there is no way those culverts are going to function and the excess water will break out and literally erode the street under which it was forced to travel under.

The zoo? Right by Knowton Creek.
The dramatic retaining wall collapse at the Co-op? Right over Brewer creek
Damage at St. Scholastica? Chester creek goes trough their campus

Miller Hill mall area flooding… all black topped wet lands

the list goes on. Now, not ALL damage was creek related. We had some mudslides out west and the St Louis flooded and stranded folks in the Fond Du Lac area that had to be rescued by boat. The damage is real and in some parts pretty bad and hopefully we’ll get some federal aid for that, but it is also isolated and fixable. No one died. Although about 11 animals at the zoo drowned.

I looked at the flood map, and was surprised to see that there was little to no problem in the very flat stretch down near the lake where we used to live.  As mentioned above, Duluth has some serious hills, and one would have expected the water to run down and inundate neighborhoods like ours.