Thursday, July 8, 2010

Gators & Rain

Louisana is the land of bayous. The whole southern part of the state is a swamp, with various portions built up to support roads and buildings. I haven't asked, but I'm guessing that almost everything built down here has been built on fill, since there are large, wide ditches between most roads and the yards of houses alongside them, as if some earth needed to be scooped up to create the drier land. At the very least--where fill was needed and where it wasn't--the water table isn't far below. On this most recent drive down to Fourchon, one of those road-yard ditches was overfull, and the houses' yards were underwater. The standing pond reached the doorstep of most houses along the way. I saw two kids playing in a rowboat in their front yard.

And where there's water, there are gators. Not to mention, where there's forest or underbrush, and yes, water, there are snakes. I'm starting to learn my snakes, to distinguish markings of the poisonous ones from the non-poisonous (and yes, some are quite similar. Nature has its mimics). But the main danger is from gators, in and near the water.
I was told, two years ago in Cameron, that there are so many gators around that I probably wouldn't make it alive from the hospital (where I'd been laid up for the night) to the port, a few miles away, by walking. It's hard to know, given the disdain many southerners feel for yankees like me, if I was being played, or if alligators are really that present a danger. Then there are the signs:


There's one like that at the roadside ditch separating the BP command center in Houma from the highway. (I'd photo it but I don't want to risk being tackled and jailed.) A drainage ditch, 20' wide, with an alligator warning. Is that just an inside joke or what? I guess not, but I just don't have much experience down here, so I'll take the warnings seriously.

Gators: there where you least expect them. If my coffee had weeds in it I'd probably leave the cup alone.

Then there's the rain. Warm air holds lots of moisture, and it's powerfully warm down here. Blue sky, with or without white clouds, is common. But just as common is building gray, when the moisture gathers into giant clouds which sweep in and deluge the area with pounding rain for minutes or the better part of an hour at a time. I've found it useful to keep a jacket with me at all times, sort of like how people keep breath mints handy. You just never know when you'll need it, you know?

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