Flooding Fiction

Yes, those are rushing Mississippi River flood waters - a torrent pouring virtually harmlessly into Lake Pontchatrain. No, no one is losing their home, business or life in front of them. Officials opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway a few days ago to prevent flooding of New Orleans, Baton Rouge and more importantly (in some folks minds) the endless number of chemical plants and oil refineries that edge the immediate shore behind the Levees between Baton Rouge and The Big Easy.

I'm in Louisiana to document the Mississippi River flood waters for National Audubon Society (more on why it's important to a bird group in a later posting.) Just saw a CNN report this morning from Morgan City, Louisiana - about 85 southwest of New Orleans. The reporter was standing in front of a old house I looked at yesterday, but decided not to photograph because it just wasn't all that dramatic, the flooding around its raised foundation. The owners were working, unrushed and jovial, to jack it up six feet to save it from possible rising waters. They told me they needed to do it anyway, save the place from future river rises (in this case the Atchafalaya River that rolls past waterfront Morgan City.) CNN put their reporter in hip-waders and had him stand in a foot of water with the house behind him reporting - it certainly had the visual feeling of impending doom - yet I know exactly where the camerman was standing - s/he and camera were plenty dry, as was the rest of Morgan City behind them. Good reporting or flooding fiction? Maybe just not the "whole" truth. Actually more the "misleading" truth by not showing the whole story. Oh well - the difference between media and journalism.

What was most frustrating is this is a network (CNN) that has its star anchor/journalist, Anderson Cooper, doing a spot on his nightly AC360 program in which he exposes others for not telling the truth, or "misleading" the truth. A bit hypocritical?

Undoubtedly there are people impacted by the most dramatic flooding of the Mississippi River since the record floods of 1927 (great book about that event - Rising Tide by John M. Barry) which created much of the levee building mess we are in today and altered the life of the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers, and ultimately the entire Mississippi Delta. And those people do indeed need there stories told. On a larger scale we need to be discussing now, while this is front and center in everyone's sights (thank you media hype) that this river, one of the three greatest river systems in the world, and worth more billions of dollars to this nation (in addition to sculpting much of its history, physically, politically and economically) needs help and attention.

"...a little rain must fall,"

"Behind the clouds the sun is shining,

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life a little rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary."

- Longfellow

"Into each life a little rain must fall", hmmm? We live on a watery planet. We are bound by cycles of precipitation. So naturally a little rain must fall. It's that ambiguous "little" that changes the equation and turns daily life into chaos. Turns a tropical trip into a chance to reconnect to being an Earthling sailing together on a lifeboat through space.

As a photographer few things strip life to its barest necessity like chaos. Images seem to emerge from what hours or days before seemed, as my Costa Rican friend Rudy Zamora would say, "tranquillo". Chaos comes in all forms, some predicted, some thrust upon its victims - be it war, famine, natural disaster, or in this case a little too much rain.

The past couple weeks in Costa Rica were the great yin-yang of traveling that makes traveling the wonderful experience I crave. The first nine days were near perfect - well, from a photography and bird-watching point of view. The chronically rain drenched Tortuguero N.P. was clear and hot. The surf rolled onshore and lured hatching baby sea turtles to sea each night and dawn. Scores of migrant song birds decorated the trees. Basking basilisks. Quiet paddling in the backwaters of the "baby Amazon."

In La Selve the rain came only one afternoon. In classic form. The sky swelled in humid heat and loomed with steely-hued cumulus. The rainforest cicada ratcheted up their mechanical rhythm and then the firmament exploded with a blinding flash and a thunderous clap - seconds later the downpour was on. We escaped and took refuge in the open bar, and toasted the tropical deluge with cold indigenous libations. Afterwards watched Aracaris share tree-ripened papaya with stingless bees.

In the mountains along the Continental Divide from Arenal N.P. southwest to Monteverde Biological Reserve light showers drift in and out of each day, as expected, this is the tropics, this is rainforest.

Even at a young age a baby Guan knew this rain wasn't going to be fun

and stuck close to mom.

The last week it was time for the other reality. The one where "...a little rain must fall,"

Over the past coupe decades of travel I've discovered most chaos slips in subtly, silently. The few contradictions being bomb-blasts from rebel factions or political protests, but even then the place had been compromised long before, you knew in your heart it was a rising tide.

The road less traveled - from Quepos to Manuel Antonio

- at least the day after 16.3 inches of rain in 24 hours made it impassable.

The wonderful British travel writer Colin Thubron wrote, "You go because you... crave excitement, ... the need to understand something before it's too late. You go to see what will happen." I would add experience, not just see, what will happen. We always want to survive that place we go, but were or when we tip-toe that tightrope of survival we step into a new reality that never leaves us.

The tail of hurricane Thomas visits Costa Rica and out-stayed it welcome, turning the Pacific Coast into waterworld. A place where virtually nothing was high enough to escape the flooding waters.

Clarity, empathy, concern, global awareness, perspective, ownership, responsibility, Earthliness are all facets of the new reality. You finally emerge from the place where things happen and your days change. You check the news, surf the web, wonder why your chaos isn't news. Why where you know things happened it doesn't concern the rest of the world.

You learn sluggish sloths may die with full bellies, unable to digest in the soggy cold. You fear for friends, and all for the homeless you drive past, left sleeping on the road. You feel a refection of guilt because your wealth secures a life boat - this time. Your world has shrunk in all the rain. It has also become more lush. Rising waters have pushed up your experiential fecundity. You do it enough and soon the whole world is your street, your town, your neighbors. Your parochial blinders washed off - you see the world with your heart and soul.

My thanks to Rudy Zamora for making the past couple weeks a brilliant experience.