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| Miami skyline darkens as Hurricane Irma approaches |
He's a first generation Irish-American who grew up in the Bronx, and he and I used to bartend together at an Irish bar on the Upper West Side of Manhattan called McAleer's.
We speak fairly regularly, but after watching CNN coverage of Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida last night, I decided to check in.
"Listen Mickey, I'm stayin' put." he defiantly declared in his New York accent tinged with a hint of an Irish brogue.
Jimmy, a genuinely eclectic character, rarely calls friends by their first names, anyone he's close with gets assigned a nickname; mine is "Mickey". Don't ask me why, I've never asked.
He now lives about 90 miles south of Gainsville about a 45-minute drive to the Orlando airport, so he's at least an hour from the east coast of Florida.
When Irma began tracking towards the west coast of Florida headed towards Tampa, Jimmy decided he was just going to ride it out at home rather than pack his car up and head north as millions of other Florida residents (including Rush Limbaugh) have done.
He told me he has plenty of food, water, vodka and tequila, plus he lives in a relatively newly constructed townhouse complex; so he's taking his chances.
Jimmy is fortunate enough that he could have afforded to evacuate if he'd chosen to, but as a number of news reports this week have detailed, like many poor residents of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, there are millions of people in Florida who simply couldn't afford to evacuate.
Something that presents a troubling problem for the future, especially given that warming ocean temperatures and the failure of advanced, industrialized nations to significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere each year are going to lead to even more coastal flooding and longer hurricane seasons.
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| A house impaled by a tree after the Johnstown Flood |
That said I want to take a look at two different American communities, Johnstown, PA and Crossett, AK.
Earlier this morning I was reading a really interesting article on the devastating Johnstown Flood by Peter Smith published in the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette back in 2014.
Those unfamiliar with this horrific disaster might understandably make the mistake of thinking of it as a "natural disaster".
But as Smith points out in his article, the event sheds light on how economic inequality can have a direct impact on the severity of weather-related disasters.
On May 31, 1889 a reservoir known as South Fork Lake (or Lake Conemaugh) holding almost 15 million cubic meters of water crashed through a poorly-constructed and criminally-neglected earthen dam in Cambria County, Pennsylvania.
The lake was the centerpiece of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, a private retreat for the wealthy residents of Pittsburgh, many of whom (including Carnegies and Fricks) had made their fortunes in steel manufacturing, railroads, coal mining and banking.
As Peter Smith notes, the 1% of Pittsburgh used the exclusive club as a getaway from the noise, heat and pollution (a by-product of their fortunes) of the city, and in an effort to make the lake more conducive to pleasure-seeking activities, they made changes to the dam that held the 16 million gallons of water at bay.
Screens which eventually became clogged with debris causing water pressure to build.
To make it easier to construct a pathway for horse-drawn carriages to pass over the dam, the club had the top of the dam reduced in height and widened to make it more even with roads on the side of the dam as seen in the illustration to the left.
As detailed in an article about the Johnstown Flood on Wikipedia, when the owners purchased the lake from the Pennsylvania Railroad, they also failed to replace a system of discharge pipes and valves that were originally part of the dam that allowed water pressure to be relieved when needed - pipes and valves that some enterprising moron later removed and sold off for scrap money.
After 24 hours of nonstop rain, around 3pm on May 31,1889 the dam on South Fork Lake finally gave way, sending 16 million gallons of water cascading 14 miles down the Little Conemaugh River as it gathered momentum and collected tons of trees, rocks, houses, railroad cars, rail lines, telegraph poles, farm animals, fences, miles of barbwire, wagons and other debris.
This deadly nightmarish mass, traveling at 40-miles per hour and at least 60 feet high, leveled several small towns before slamming into the town of Johnstown 57 minutes after the dam broke.
The resulting devastation killed 2,208 people (including 396 children), unknown numbers of animals, and leveled the town of Johnstown - 777 victims were never identified - and some trapped people and animals died when a fire later broke out in the debris.
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| Part of the tons of debris clogging the Little Conemaugh River after the Johnstown Flood |
It was the first large-scale relief effort by the Red Cross, whose founder, Clara Barton stayed there for 5 months along with the thousands of people who came from across the nation to assist.
The failure of the dam was a direct result of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club's alterations to the dam and failure to maintain it.
But sadly, in a reflection of the economic inequality which is so prevalent today, even though the actions of the club caused the devastation, two high-priced lawyers (who were also members of the club) successfully blocked efforts to hold the club liable - and a court reached the conclusion that the dam break was an act of God.
None of the victims were able to sue the members for damages, and though club members did donate thousands of dollars to the relief effort, they were never held legally responsible - and they'd made sure to keep their personal assets safely walled off from any liabilities the club might face.
The aftermath of the Johnstown Flood sparked a change in liability laws around the country and brought increased attention on the economic disparity of the Victorian age - not just here in America but around the world as well.
But unfortunately the deeper economic inequity at the root of the disaster is still impacting the lives of poor and working class people.
On Friday's edition of the Leonard Lopate Show, Natlie Kottke-Masocco and Erica Sardarian, who wrote, produced and directed the new documentary Company Town, were interviewed about their work to bring attention to the town of Crossett, Arkansas.
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| Activist Pastor David Bouie in front of his home in Crossett, Arkansas |
Georgia-Pacific is owned by Charles and David Koch, whose company Koch Industries is on record as one of the most prolific polluters in modern American history.
The Koch brothers are ardent libertarians who spend hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to back conservative political candidates.
But not just any political candidate, those who will aggressively attack state and federal environmental laws as infringements on personal freedom to make it easier for Koch Industries to make more profit from the web of oil, natural gas, pipeline and other energy-related companies they own.
The Koch brothers didn't build the paper plant in Crossett - but they own it now.
One of the subjects of Company Town is Pastor David Bouie, a long-time environmental activist, he worked in the plant for 10 years and he's pictured above standing in front of his home on Penn Road in Crossett - of the 15 homes in the area, 11 have had someone die of cancer and in the film he walks the block identifying each one by name.
Another subject in the film, Hazel Parker, also worked in the plant - her mother, father and sister all died of cancer.
9-year-old Simone Smith is interviewed in the film as well, she was diagnosed with cancer and her ovary had to be surgically removed after a mass was discovered in her stomach.
The documentary cites not only the pollution from the Georgia-Pacific plant that's clogged a nearby river as well as the soil and air, but the alarmingly high cancer rates suffered by residents of the town whose livelihoods depend on the plant.
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| Georgia-Pacific plant in Crossett |
The film is in a limited release in New York, but I'm hoping it's going to be made available on Netflix so it can reach a wider audience - someone needs to stick EPA head Scott Pruitt in a room and watch this film, but he's probably already been in a room with lobbyists from Georgia-Pacific or Koch Industries.
Ben Kenigsberg wrote a review of Company Town in the New York Times last Thursday, and while the pollution in Crossett has been the subject of media coverage in the past, hopefully the release of the documentary will generate more public attention and political pressure on Koch Industries to do something about the pollution that's causing cancer .
Not in a nightmarish flood like in Johnstown back in 1889, but slowly and steadily as Koch Industries continues to make profit while average Americans of modest means suffer from the same plant that keeps food on their tables and a steady paycheck coming.
If there's a more egregious example of the devastating effects of economic inequity, environmental racism, political apathy, loss of innocent life and the spoiling of natural resources in the name of profit, I'm not sure what it is.
Anyway I'll check in with my friend Jimmy shortly to make sure he's okay as Hurricane Irma approaches, he's lucky enough to be able to leave in the event of a disaster, whether it be man-made or natural.
Most of the people of Crossett, Arkansas and Johnstown, Pennsylvania back in 1889 weren't, and are not, nearly so fortunate.
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