2016-10-26T12:30:41-05:00

Last updated on: October 26, 2016 at 12:30 pm   By

The South Carolina Emergency Management Division has updated their information on donating and volunteering.  There is a long list of options for monetary donations, as well as opportunities for donations of goods and services. If you’re looking for the Catholic option, direct your funds to Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Charleston.  This is an organization of the diocese itself, and is a go-to source around the state, particularly well known for legal aid and for preventing homelessness.  If you strike up... Read more

2015-10-06T10:26:48-05:00

Last updated on: October 6, 2015 at 10:26 am   By

Statesmen have a right to poetry in their oratory, and I give Governor Haley every allowance for referring to the flooding in South Carolina as something that happens “once in a thousand years.”  The point she wishes to make is that the present events were utterly unexpected, and I agree with her.  There are countless cases where you can glance at the land and the forecast and be utterly unsurprised by a bit of flooding; the recent disaster in the Midlands... Read more

2015-10-06T10:25:34-05:00

Last updated on: October 6, 2015 at 10:25 am   By

In my next post I’m going to talk about the notion of whether the devastating flooding in the Columbia area can, in fact, be considered a “1000-year flood.”  But before I do that, it will help if you understand some of the words I’m going to use.  They are place-words, and they may not mean what you think they mean. What is “Columbia, SC”? When speaking to outsiders, or speaking of your travel from the hinterlands back to the homeland,... Read more

2015-10-06T09:43:55-05:00

Last updated on: October 6, 2015 at 9:43 am   By

Christian LeBlanc (Cajun architect, when he isn’t being your Sunday school teacher) inquired if sand boils might be a factor in the dam failures in central South Carolina right now. And what might a sand boil be?  I’d never heard of them either.  But curiously, I said, we’d noticed this strange thing while walking around the neighborhood Sunday: In the cracks between the pavement, the sand wasn’t just saturated with water, the water was bubbling. Christian gave the virtual knowing-nod —... Read more

2015-10-07T12:11:30-05:00

Last updated on: October 7, 2015 at 12:11 pm   By

UPDATED: Go here for a better list of ways to help with immediate needs and longterm recovery. One of the difficulties with assisting with flood relief in South Carolina is that unless you are in the immediate area, you may not be able to physically get to a location in order to offer assistance in-kind. The National Guard collects donations every April 15th (and are doing good work with those funds, thank you), and I’m told a number of dubious... Read more

2015-10-06T09:52:23-05:00

Last updated on: October 6, 2015 at 9:52 am   By

We sent our son out to test the water table in the yard for us, in order to assess how likely it was we’d have trouble with septic tank. We live on sandy soil (well-drained to a fault) on the highest ground there is in our area — you can literally only go downhill from our home.  We’re on a massive bluff.  (Contrary to a distant reader’s mistaken assumption, the western two-thirds of SC are rolling hills, not flatland). In sum: We’ve got... Read more

2015-10-06T09:52:34-05:00

Last updated on: October 6, 2015 at 9:52 am   By

Still have power? Internet?  Here’s a fun game you can play at home to add verve to your obsessive trolling of SC flood photos.  (Me? Do that?)  What you’ll need is a photo with a caption and Google Earth. Using those clues, you, too, can identify which dams have failed and which are (probably) still standing. You can do it all from the comfort of your living room, and with no pesky PhD to bother about.   If there’s not... Read more

2015-10-06T09:52:43-05:00

Last updated on: October 6, 2015 at 9:52 am   By

If you are following the news, you know that South Carolina’s been hit with epic flooding this weekend.  We are resisting the urge to go out looking for too much trouble, so I refer you to the wonders of other parts of the internet for the big dramatic photos.  Meanwhile, a tutorial on why we are inundated so dramatically, when there’s not even a real hurricane experience going on or anything. We Don’t Get This Weather Because I live on... Read more

2015-10-03T23:34:24-05:00

Last updated on: October 3, 2015 at 11:34 pm   By

To grieve is a natural right.  It is a human right.  We have the right to grieve for the suffering and death of those we have known and loved intimately, and we have the right to grieve for those we have not known at all.  It suffices that another person is a fellow human being, a person endowed with inherent dignity and worth; that person’s suffering or death is, by its very nature, worthy of our sorrow.   The moment... Read more

2015-10-02T06:32:01-05:00

Last updated on: October 2, 2015 at 6:32 am   By

BISMARK, ND – Following on the heels of the lawsuit against Michigan-based Catholic hospital Trinity Health Corporation, the ACLU has stepped into the breech and targeted the often-overlooked enemy of ‘choice’: Catholic Universities. In a lawsuit against the University of Mary, lawyers for the ACLU attest, “The university serves non-Catholic students, but fails to recognize those students have the right to choose whether or not to kill innocent people over whom they hold the power of life and death.” Planned... Read more

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