South Texas is an Acute State of Emergency
September 9, 2012
So that your computer
screening algorithm doesn’t falsely categorize these comments, let me state
them clearly from the start: 1) My main concern is the LIVES, safety, and
welfare of the PEOPLE of TEXAS.
2)
Clarify: why, I am certain that the urban populations
are
at much greater risk due to the drought than they believe.
3) The reason for their heightened risk is that
all public service organizations have failed to informed the public of the
SEVERE and NEAR EMERGENCY levels of the reservoirs on which urban communities
depend for all the water needs and ALL of the electrical power needs. In this
State the only way electricity is generated is by use of the standard steam
generator which ,by the nature of it’s design, must run at high speeds to be
efficient. Due to a flaw in the design, these generators periodically run too
fast and heat up. If they are not immediately cooled with large amounts of
water, they explode. So, no water, means
no electricity. No electricity means no
gas, because gasoline pumps require electricity. Few people are aware of these relationships.
4)
The most culpable is the State government whose leadership recently
declared “there is no water problem…no further conservation measures are
necessary.” This declaration is so
contradictory to the fact, that it is not only a bold faced lie, but deprives
the public of information that would allow them to make their own
decision. This is simply not the
American way of doing things. I can
think of nothing to be gained by sitting back and watching this wonderful city
fall apart, when, while we cannot control the drought, we can do many things to
mitigate the impact. We can plan for evacuations, stockpile bottled water, install
generators. All these kinds of actions require time for planning and execution.
My simple calculations suggest that Travis County will be bone dry by the first
week in February. It would take a
massive volunteer army of citizens to
accomplish anything substantial, even if we managed to start by October 1st,
a mere 3 weeks away.
On June 29, 2012 the combined
lake reservoirs of Travis County (Austin) hit a predetermined trigger point
that was set during the1951 drought. The
recommendation of the former Texas Water Commission directed by a scientist and
Professor of Biology at Texas A&M with an impeccable pedigree and long
record of successful management of Texas water crisis, was immediate dramatic
cutbacks on our usage of both water and power, including “rolling
brownouts”. But nothing happened. Utilities
routinely follow the commission’s recommendations because of their impeccable history
of success. However, Governor Perry intervened
and stopped the recommendations from being executed. A month later, he had the water districts
issue a letter to all retail customers stating “There is no longer a water
problem; and, no further conservation efforts will be necessary.” He “defined”
away the problem. Meanwhile, our
reservoirs steadily went lower. Then
last Friday the LCRA announced a complete change in the Board of Directors,
filled with people from the real estate and financial sectors who have an
obvious conflict of interest with any conservation efforts or even an honest
warning to the general public about the general potential dangers that they may
face. No a single scientist is on the
board. None of the new board members
have any experience in water management.
I then did some simple
calculations based on the current water supply in the reservoirs : 898,809 acre
feet on Sept 2, 2012. All numbers are in
units of acre feet unless otherwise indicated.
898,809 ( *1) divided by 40,000/week (an average usage
rate)= 22.47 weeks =157.29 days= 5.243 months.
Thus, this estimation
projects that we will run completely
dry by the first week in February 2013.
Draconian cutbacks in power and water will have to begin well before
that, no matter what the Governor names the situation. So, extreme cutbacks should begin as early as
October (that is next month) to avoid the risk of running completely dry in 5
short months which would mean1.7 million people without power, water, food or
gasoline and no warning that this was going to happen. That sounds like a serious problem to
me. No preparations of any kind have
been made by any organization on any level of government from county/city to
FEMA; and neither have any NGO’s (Non-Government organizations). People in Travis County will be like people
in the Sudan, no supplies to sustain life, no way of escape, and no one ready
to provide the massive relief necessary.
That is the course the State
Government led by our Governor, who doesn’t believe government has any role is
social services, which quite bizarrely includes not warning the public of
impending disasters. But, we are a free
people and we are not bound to follow the Governor’s advice (do nothing). We
must dramatically reduce our usage of power and water by 50% to buy time to
prepare for the day our lakes are empty and total social and economic chaos and
panic result.
The Governor could be impeached and removed
from office; so that a person capable of managing this disaster (like a retired
Army Coronel with experience in disaster relief) could take control. But that must happen quickly, in less than a
month. Not impossible, but this state is
totally dominated by Perry’s party, which will go down in history as the party
that destroyed the State’s capitol out of pure negligence. The populous is so conditioned to take the
word of the party in power that we don’t even question their near-dictatorial
powers. In this case, the lack of a
healthy opposition will prove to be catastrophic. What I am talking about is just Austin. I have every reason to believe that the
situation is even worse in San Antonio and in the Valley. Eastern Texas cities, Dallas-Fort Worth and
Houston’s reservoirs are in better condition; but, they certainly don’t have even
remotely an “excess” that would enable them to help the critical shortages in
South Texas. To the north, there are
catastrophic droughts all the way to southern Minnesota.
My grandparents all lived their
lives on farms. Living off the land with
hard work and intelligent use of limited recourses---they wasted NOTHING. They showed the kind of courage that built
this great country and reached its peak of accomplishment after WWII after
saving the world from fascism. Then for
the first time in history, instead of pillaging the losers, America rebuilt the
devastated German and Japanese economies and installed democratic republic
governments. This was to end the cycles of wars causing wars due to the
desperation of the defeated, which is exactly what happened after WWI, creating
fertile ground for Hitler to gain power by promising hope.
This is not the time for
Texans, long respected for their toughness and determination under the most
trying circumstances, to be passive and swallow the bold faced lies our
government is dishing out on a daily basis.
The Austin-American Statesman has sold out to the Perry fantasy that
“prayer “ will save us from the devastation of this drought. Perry stated this in a speech in December of
2011 when he acknowledged that there was a drought.
It is normal to be frightened by this
unprecedented drought; but, we must act and do our best in spite of our
fear. Courage is the ability to act and
do the right thing in spite of fear.
Cowardice is giving into the fear and becoming paralyzed to take
action. We are presently acting more
like the later than the former. I
believe we are better than that. The
spirit that our ancestors had is still alive in us; it is just in hiding. It must be found and roused into action soon. Thousands of lives are at stake. The drought is real. It is already threatening to destroy the
economy and the population base of the state, now at 26.5 million. The World Climactic Change is real; and, Texas
is the first State (along with the less populous states of New Mexico and
Arizona) to suffer the consequences of these devastating climactic changes that
no one living has ever experienced. We
must break through our fear and denial and actively do everything in our power
to mitigate the effects. Just pretend it
is the worst hurricane to ever hit the state.
The main difference is that this event will not last a few days and then
simply disappear. This climactic event
will last for years.
I was born and raised in Fort
Worth, Texas.
BS in Radio-TV-Film
University of Texas at Austin 1971
DO from the Texas College of
Osteopathic Medicine 1980
I
have over 190 credits mostly in science and engineering in the University of
Texas System. I changed majors three
times: electrical engineering (GPA of 3.61), radio-RV-Film and Biology.
Since I read Marshall McCluhan’s
prophetic The Medium is the Message, warning of the dangers of mental
illness from watching television, in 1969, I have not watched television
since. I know of none of my peers who responded to his admonitions in such a
manner. So, while virtually everyone
else was watching television, I was reading non-fiction text books regarding
the latest breakthrough in a vast variety of fields. When Prozac appeared in the late ‘80’s and
destroyed our psychological model of
human behavior, the next decade was an exciting time, a major breakthrough in
our understanding of the biology of the brain and how it effected our behavior
produced an exciting new book at least every month. I read them all including new breakthroughs
in genetics, linguistic, demographics, paleoanthropology, the great human diaspora, and on and on. My family called me “the Book Worm”. I also
read dozens of books on finance and trading stocks, bonds, and futures. I was a full time trader for over 2 years,
Until I figured out that every aspect of the world of finance is rigged, in
that without the right powerful friends, the common man doesn’t have a chance
of making money in any of the markets and keeping it.
Retired in 2011 due to
medical disability after serving for 8 years at the State’s largest psychiatric
institution, North Texas State Hospital in Wichita Falls and Vernon (where the
forensic unit was located). There, I
learned valuable lessons from direct contact with the sickest of the sick.
The above explanation is
written to describe my varied backgrounds; and, thus, knowledge in what I write in order to dismiss
any skeptics.
flickr:
flickr.com/mcreedonmcvean Over 22,ooo
posts
Morris Creedon-McVean, D.O.
Licensed to practice Medicine
in Texas
Not a single malpractice suit
in over 30 years of clinical medicine; including 8 years at the largest mental
hospital in the State, North Texas State Hospital in Wichita Falls &
Vernon.
If this makes any sense to you please forward a copy to everyone you know, especially residneses of Texas, the only way to mitigate this disaster is if we understand and organize ourselves, and takes the necessary actions in order to save each other. In spite of the negative outlook, it could be the catalyst for a rebuilding of community in not only Texas but the entire nation. Wouldn't that be a refreshing change to the Presidential campaign, when seemed to bring out the worst qualities of Americans divisiveness, hatred, a complete refusal to discuss the issue that were most important to the american people. A condensed summery of Campaign 2012 would be "I don't like you, because your party caused (insert probled) 3 decades ago. No facts to support the accusation, then hurry on to the next complaint. I can't speak for you, but this script stunk the firts time, and now after 101 repititions it all makes me sick. Let. vote Tues september 17th and get it over with. The only event of substance left is the debates and that is such an unfair fight with Obams's skills in that format so much more formable, that it will a skillful vs unskillful exercise in avoidance. We deserve better than that.
*1 Source hydormet.lcra.org;lakevolume (a service of the Texas State Water Commission
calculated in real time using feet above sea level as the methodology.)
*2 Usage rate used at the
higher end of the range of variable usage rates because of the high
temperatures which are likely to continue and the constantly increasing
population, and the Governors written message to utilities that “there is no
more water problem and no further conservation measures are needed”
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