B) i lost all respect for the COE back in the late 50's/early 60's, ray. what grew out of the skill, necessity & innovation of wartime has turned into an outdated embarassment. when i watched them attempt to use "flood control" on the everglades while a youngster in miami, i knew even then, at my young age, that they were delusional. what they did was darn near destroy the everglades, the wildlife in it & the sugarcane industry in one whack!! we're talking about a flowing river as wide as the state of florida & as long as the bottom half of the state. they figured a few flood control dams on some waterways would do the job. we had one built on the canal we lived on, right after they dredged it 40' deep. thought was, by dredging select waterways, the water would use them, & not the more restricted shallower ones. HA!!!!! anyone that lives from lake okeechobee south knows that there is a lot of marsh & swamp down there & it is all connected & ebbs & flows as a unit. same deal as the mississippi river, flood gates at a few wide spread sites cannot control a RIVER SYSTEM. system being the key word, you can't attempt to control small areas where the risk/damage potential is high, you HAVE to look at it as a whole & act accordingly. can it be done at all?? to think that they can control nature with a few small flood gates ( i say few & small in relation to what they are attempting) would be funny, if the consequences they create weren't so dire. it's NATURE & it's way stronger than anything we have for it. it's a RIVER, & it WILL flood sometimes, don't live so close, or in the lowlands. if you do, don't come crying because you got wet, you knew it before you moved there. and on that same point, don't expect me to bail you out, again you knew the risks when you wanted that river view.........sorry if this sounds cold,i wish nobody any physical harm, but the pity part ain't happening, if you don't like the sound of airplanes, don't move close to the airport - same, same.........sorry about the rant, just one of those subjects that gets to me. again, don't move into harm's way without being prepared for the consequences & don't try to control something you need to adapt to B)
