Mississippi River Delta May Flood: A sign of things to come

Extreme Weather seems to be a growing concern for those of us in the US.  Between the record tornadoes in the southeast and the absurdly long winter we’ve had here in the northeast, I was already feeling pretty convinced that we are seeing the effects of Climate Change and after reading this NYT article, I’m starting to think that we will be seeing bigger changes, faster than we are expecting:

All eyes in the delta are on the Mississippi River and the bulge of water it is carrying southward, pushing back its tributaries into the towns along its banks, sending residents scattering toward higher ground and setting records all along the way.

“This is historic,” said Col. Jeffrey R. Eckstein, commander of the Vicksburg District of the Army Corps of Engineers, who became the day’s keynote speaker at the last minute. “Things that have never happened, people here have never seen before, we are going to see.”

More:

Officials have already spent days fighting back the White River in Arkansas, where there have been two deaths and hundreds of homes have flooded. Hundreds of residents are being urged to evacuate certain areas in and around Memphis, where tributaries have swelled into parts of the city as well as suburbs and mobile home parks and inundated a small airport.

And more:

The engorged river is still several days away from cresting in Memphis but has already prompted the authorities to go door to door in areas that are likely to be affected, urging hundreds of residents to move to higher ground. Bob Nations, the director of the Shelby County Office of Preparedness, estimated that 3,000 homes and businesses would eventually be affected by the floodwaters.

To explain why this is happening, the article says:

The anxiety is in the backwater, the tributaries that are carrying water from the heavy rains down to the Mississippi. The river is not only too high to take any more water, but is also pushing its own water up into the tributaries — and wherever else it can go.

That is what has happened in Arkansas, where the White River, fattened from weeks of heavy rains, has forced the evacuation of towns along its course and the closing a stretch of busy Interstate 40 between Little Rock and Memphis.

Yikes. 

Essentially, it’s heavy rains that are doing this. 

What other surprises will Climate Change bring us?  And shouldn’t we be focusing less on terrorism and more on protecting lives and infrastructure here at home?