SATURDAY EXTRA!

Good Morning Michael,
Well, it's not raining today so that's a good thing. The sun was out for a bit yesterday and a lot of stuff is starting to dry up and the waters are receding. FEMA has shown up and they are just walking around taking notes. They are in their jeans and good shoes so they aren't slogging around in the mud really looking at things the way they should but that's about what you would expect from the .gov.

I went out visiting this morning and checked on friends that I've been cut off from. They all did pretty well and were pretty resourceful in getting water in to the houses. I dropped off some canned food where they said they were starting to run low and passed out a little bit of money so they can replenish if they can get to the store.

We have a local chair called "Food Depot" and it flooded and is full of rotting meat and soaked food. It's been looted every night since the water started going down. I just hope that the people who are doing the looting eat the food and get horribly sick from it and I hope to heck they aren't giving it to their kids. Kids are innocent and don't deserve to receive the evil from the older ones misdeeds.

We are still in a boil water advisory. Our main water supply comes via the Chattahoochee River and the normal bacteria count in that water is about 300. Several waste treatment plants were flooded and dumped everything in the river. At the mouth of the tributary fed by Lake Lanier the bacteria count is over 7000, 2 miles downstream it's over 14000 and a little further down it is over 100,000 and they say it's dangerous to get it splashed on you. I don't see that getting better anytime soon. The river also provides drinking water to Florida and Alabama so those folks may want to stock up on bottled water.

Some of the local churches are handing out water, cleaning kits and some food and clothes. Most of it has been donated by Kroger Food stores. No sign of the big FEMA trucks and the Georgia Emergency Management Authority is still hunkered down in their shelter trying to figure out what to. Pretty much says we are on our own to take care of our own.

All in all I count myself lucky and as long as the rain holds off another couple of days and the creek don't rise again we should be OK.

By the way, I don't think Six Flags is going to be opening this weekend. It smells really bad down there since they were flooded by the Chattahoochie River.

Take care and keep doing what you are doing. God's advice to keep the garden growing is really good advice to follow.

Keep your powder dry and your pantry full, it could get really ugly soon.

Cliff in Georgia