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barton cole :: veni, vedi, vero scripsi
 Thursday, January 08, 2009
In December, we had over a foot of snow, the snowfall spread out over a few days, which was uncommon for my region (although more common in the last several years - is that what the onset of an Ice Age looks like?). It hindered Christmas travel plans, so there were parties and events we didn't get to - since we seldom have much impact from snowfall, the authorities are underprepared - hardly any snowplows, and when they did come through town, they just skimmed off the recent snow to get back down to the dangerous, icy layer.
Looking at the weather reports, I could see that rain was forecast for the week after Christmas, beginning Christmas Day. The National Weather Service pointed out that the temperature wasn't going to rise dramatically, so there wouldn't be a rapid melt, which would result in flooding for sure.
This week, though, things are different. We had a bit of snow the other night, but it was wet and minimal, and now, the rain has begun in earnest. Out on the Pacific coast west of me, they're expecting up to twenty inches of rain over the next few days, with as much as three inches in the interior - where I am, poised on an island north of Puget Sound. That's a lot of rain.
We can use it - on our island, we have a "single source aquifer," which means that all our drinking water comes out of the ground. The only way to recharge the aquifer is rainfall, so we're looking at our future tap water.
And the temperature is up in the forties - call it 5°Celsius. So the snow in the mountains to the east is rapidly and unseasonably melting; the metropolitan areas get their drinking water from reservoirs, filled by snow-melt. As has happened in recent years, the snow melts too much in the winter and spring, so the reservoirs get low in the summer. Too bad for them!
Of course, all this snow melt means the water has to go somewhere, so it does, flowing down the rivers to link back up with the sea. The weather service upgraded the status from "Flood Watch" - which means conditions are favorable for flooding - to "Flood Warning," which means the rivers ARE flooding. I heard flood warnings for several Western Washington counties, including Island County, my own.
I find that rather comical - I live on an island - there are streams, but no rivers, and the highest elevation is around five hundred feet - so there isn't a snow cap that will melt. We're going to be just fine. Nothing to worry about.
Certainly, one of the benefits of living on an island.
And even if the ice at both poles of the earth melts and the sea level rises (unfortunately, it's possible, thanks to our way of living and our impact on the planet and its ability to regulate its temperature), I'm still up at one-hundred-fifty feet - so maybe I'll be able to dig clams just down the street, instead of having to go all the way down the hill to the beach.
An island has other benefits: to get here from America, I have to take a ferry. It's a short crossing, us being only a few miles from the continent, but enough to provide a nice, psychological distinction between the Island and the rest of the world. I recall that in Dracula, the vampire's prey, in London, was able to elude him by exploiting his inability to cross moving water - Dracula could only cross the Thames at the moment of slack tide, when things were briefly static. So the ferry crossing keeps the vampires out, which is comforting, since they manifest themselves in all kinds of metaphorical ways.
I used to live in Seattle - was born there; I grew up in a little town on the water about thirty miles south. I lived in Seattle as an adult, with my family; we gradually moved north, away from the city. The house we lived in from which we moved to the island over fifteen years ago was ten blocks north of the Seattle city limits, in a town called Shoreline, but we still referred to it as Seattle.
That's the way it is with a city. The border is arbitrary, and can even change, when the city annexes neighborhoods, increasing its size and tax-base. Not so with an island - the distinction between what is the island and what is not is pretty clear - you go down to the water's edge, and that's the end of your island.
Islanders, in my experience, are pleased with being so. It's a special thing, to live on one. Culturally, we think of an island as remote and disconnected - the Latin words, "insulate" and "isolate" both refer to the condition of an island. We're isolated, yes, although a mere twenty-minute boat ride to America. And as remote as we need to be.
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