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King tide causes flooding in parts of South Florida

October 27, 2015

HIGHLIGHTS
King tides will continue through Wednesday
Flood-prone areas in South Florida should expect rising water at high tide

[SLIDESHOW - 1-10]

Miami Beach has put into action an aggressive and expensive plan to combat the effects of sea level rise. As some streets keep flooding from recent king tide events, the city continues rolling out its plan of attack and will spend between $400-$500 million over the next five years doing so. Emily Michot [e-mail]

By Joey Flechas and Jenny Staletovich
[e-mail]

Julian Cohen watched the water rise Tuesday morning from the backyard of his Miami Beach home with his dog Kimbo.

Kimbo couldn't go for his usual morning walk because their house, which is on a canal, was marooned after the king tide swamped his street and driveway.

"It's double-waterfront," Cohen said, peering out from his front porch as cars splashed by just north of the Miami Beach Golf Club.

Video: The King tide is high on Miami Beach
Miami Beach, and South Florida, is experiencing a King tide during the full moon. Walter Michot / Miami Herald

Tidal floods were expected Tuesday morning and will continue through Wednesday as the annual king tide causes saltwater to seep up in low-lying areas of South Florida.

From Fort Lauderdale to the Keys, flood-prone areas should plan for soggy conditions at high tide.

In Hollywood, where Robin Rorapaugh stacked 150 sandbags to keep her house dry, water bubbled up from storm drains to flood Buchanan Street and into her yard. Rorapaugh, who has lived in her 1923 house since 2000, said flooding has gotten progressively worse, with streets flooding after two inches of rain.

“I’m becoming an expert on all kinds of plants that do well with saltwater,” she said.

Just east of the Intracoastal Waterway in Fort Lauderdale, even before the highest tides, seawater flooded the street outside Shooters Restaurant and lapped at sidewalks.

“I love everything about the neighborhood and the location and restaurants nearby, but it seems to be getting worse,” said Robert Owen, who purchased his condominium at the nearby Tides at Bridgeside Square about seven years ago. “It can’t be good for property values.”

[image, of tweet?]
Jon Ullman @jdullman
Matheson Hammock atoll at high tide courtesy of Phil Stoddard @jenstaletovich @JohnMoralesNBC6 #miami #actonclimate
4:46 AM - 28 Oct 2015
6 6 Retweets

While recently installed pumps have kept some streets dry in Miami Beach, other neighborhoods that are waiting for their pumps continue to deal with several inches of water pooling in front of their homes and often up into their driveways.

Cohen, a 28-year-old real estate agent, said he rented the home without knowing the tides would inundate his street.

"It causes a river in front of my house," he said.

Miami Beach officials are entering the second year of a five-year plan to install dozens of pumps through the city to push water out into Biscayne Bay.

It's an aggressive push to combat high tides and the long-term effects of sea level rise. Miami-Dade County and other governments are in the planning stages to develop a strategy for contending with future sea rise.

This week's rising tides are commonly known as the king tide, which occurs every fall. South Florida got a preview of this in late September, when a supermoon-fueled high tide caused similar flooding. Another seasonal high tide is forecast for Nov. 24 through Nov. 27.

This article includes comments from the Public Insight Network , an online community of people who have agreed to share their opinions with the Miami Herald and WLRN. Become a source at MiamiHerald.com/insight.

Related content
Video: Miami Beach waging a battle against sea level rise
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article41146359.html

Miami Beach’s battle to stem rising tides
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article41141856.html

Beyond the high tides, South Florida water is changing
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/environment/article41416653.html

King tides to peak in South Florida this week
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article41487882.html

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/miami-beach/article41534928.html

===

On Parched Navajo Reservation, ‘Water Lady’ Brings Liquid Gold

By FERNANDA SANTOSJULY 13, 2015


Slide Show|8 Photos
Liquid Gold Delivered From a Treasure Chest on Wheels
CreditRick Scibelli Jr. for The New York Times

THOREAU, N.M. — The yellow truck slogged along the red-dirt roads in this impoverished corner of the Navajo reservation last week, its belly full of water — liquid gold in a treasure chest on wheels. The truck’s driver, Darlene Arviso, steered it patiently, up, down and around pockmarks chiseled on the ground by a recent downpour.

“So much rain, but a lot of people with no water,” she mumbled, angling toward the entrance of a mud-splashed hogan, the traditional Navajo hut that was the first stop on her delivery route that day.

Her job is simple: She brings clean water to people who have none of it at home. One-third of the roughly 50,000 households on the Navajo reservation face this problem, one of the highest concentrations of water-poor homes in the country. A multiyear drought has only made it worse.

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Water has never been abundant for the Navajo people, whose land straddles the high desert across three states — New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. That has created a culture of conservation, making Navajos a model for much of the parched West .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/us/california-drought-tests-history-of-endless-growth.html , even as their own search for water has also become more of a challenge.


Darlene Arviso, right, delivered fresh water to Lindsay Johnson, 78, and her family near Thoreau,
N.M. The Johnsons reuse much of the water they get. Credit Rick Scibelli Jr. for The New York Times

Scientists behind the National Climate Assessment, a major report measuring the effects of climate change in the United States, heard Navajo elders speak .. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/indigenous-peoples#intro-section-2 .. of a perceptible decline in snowfall over the years and the gradual disappearance of streams, lakes and shallow wells atop the flat-topped mesas that dot the reservation.

In Thoreau, residents said that the soil had become sandier, and that horses and cows had been dying of thirst .. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/us/horses-fall-victim-to-hard-times-and-dry-times-on-the-range.html .. by water holes that had gone dry. Some families have had to drink, bathe and cook with water they have hauled from livestock tanks, or use water pumped from aquifers poisoned by radioactive waste, a devastating legacy .. http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2014/08/05/uranium-mining-poison-wells-safe-drinking-water/13635345/ .. of decades of uranium mining on Navajo lands. Often, this is the only water they can find — unless they are among Ms. Arviso’s 221 clients.

They call her the “water lady,” but she is much more than that. She listens to their desires and
afflictions, then helps resolve them, if she can. She is psychiatrist, benefactor and best friend.

[beautiful! Ms. Arviso sounds a wonderful dear lady]

She also has her own struggles — she is a widow raising her children’s children in a home with a broken septic tank. But she does not complain.

When she needs comfort, she reads the Bible verse that hangs from the rearview mirror of her truck, Ephesians 3:20: “Now to him who is able to do exceedingly more above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”

A devoted Pentecostal, Ms. Arviso, 51, started delivering water six years ago, the first and only driver of the diesel-powered Chevrolet Kodiak C8500 owned by the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission .. http://www.stbonaventuremission.org/ , which also runs a Catholic school and mobile-home park in town.

“I pray every day that I give myself to the Lord,” she said. “He’s working through me.”

Ms. Arviso hugged the homeowners she serviced on Monday, greeting them with warm smiles and an effusive Yá’át’ééh (pronounced YAH-t-eh) — hello in Navajo. She promised one of them, Marta Cleveland, that she would swing by a thrift store and pick up some old sheets. Ms. Cleveland, stooped and hard of hearing at 77, said she made quilts out of the sheets to pass time.

Two 55-gallon barrels were waiting for Ms. Arviso outside Ms. Cleveland’s home. One still had about five gallons of water in it, but the water was dirty. Ms. Arviso suggested throwing it out so she could fill the barrel with clean water. Ms. Cleveland protested. She would use it to clean the cracked tile floor in her home.


Ms. Arviso, a water truck driver for the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission, on her route
last week. Credit Rick Scibelli Jr. for The New York Times

Nearby, Angela Largo, 46, leaned in close to Ms. Arviso and described the hardships of raising a severely disabled son on her own. Ms. Arviso listened quietly, her eyes on the water flowing through the thick hose connected to her truck, filling four barrels — 200 gallons, which was supposed to last three weeks.

On average, Navajo families live on seven gallons of water per day. In California, the average is 362 gallons, according to a 2011 study .. http://www.irwd.com/images/pdf/save-water/CaSingleFamilyWaterUseEfficiencyStudyJune2011.pdf .. sponsored by the state’s Department of Water Resources. There, the governor, Jerry Brown, ordered municipalities to cut consumption by 25 percent .. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/us/california-imposes-first-ever-water-restrictions-to-deal-with-drought.html , part of a sweeping package of mandatory drought restrictions.

Here, conserving water is not a choice or a mandate. It is a way of life.

Ms. Arviso’s clients store their water in closed-top rain barrels and recycled buckets — Mrs. Klein’s Dill Pickles, Block & Barrel Dill Hamburger Slices, Augason Farms Hard Wheat. They fill empty bottles of Coke, jugs of Tampico Mango Juice and whatever plastic container they can find.

“We take what we can from the water lady,” said Lindsay Johnson, 78, as her grandchildren ran around the barren yard, playing a game of tag.

They also reuse much of what they get. Inside, one of Ms. Johnson’s daughters, Britanna George, dumped water from the buckets into a tank next to the stove. “That,” Ms. George said, “is for cleaning and cooking.”

On the floor, two basins sat empty, to be used every three days, when all the family members wash their hair. When that water gets too dirty, too full of suds, Ms. Johnson uses it to clean the floor.

Since 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency .. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/environmental_protection_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org .. and other federal entities have invested more than $27 million on projects to improve water delivery on the reservation. They include piping water into 800 homes and improving the quality of the water that other homes already get.

A nonprofit, DigDeep Water .. http://www.navajowaterproject.org/ , has been working with the St. Bonaventure Mission to build a well and water filtration plant along Ms. Arviso’s route so she can fill up her tank more easily and, in turn, serve more families.

She has a daughter in Texas, earning a decent living as a heavy-equipment operator. The daughter has called her to come visit, take time off from her busy life — Ms. Arviso also drives a school bus, before and after her water delivery shifts. But she resists leaving the reservation and her work, even for a little while.

“I can’t,” she said as she pulled in the mission’s parking lot midafternoon, the truck’s belly empty after 11 deliveries. “If I’m not here, who’s going to bring these people their water? Right now, I’m all they’ve got.”

A version of this article appears in print on July 14, 2015, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: On Parched Navajo Reservation, ‘Water Lady’ Brings Liquid Gold. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/14/us/on-parched-navajo-reservation-water-lady-brings-liquid-gold.html?_r=0

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we have about a foot of snow, a little more on the peaks. It appears to want to stay, as the temperatures have been unseasonably cold.
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