Category: Nature

And the precip keep a’falling in the greater Austin area today. I’m thanking God I’m in the suburbs, as all of Austin is under a mandatory water boil notice, after the historic hill country flooding. Our lakes look like Nestle Quik.

Several of my friends’ lakeside homes have been destroyed. Many don’t have flood insurance because we’re lucky to get two drops of rain per year. This is a drought city. We go several months at 100 plus temps and not a drop of rain. Nearly every dang summer. It’s feast or famine.

And now it’s feasting time. You don’t realize how important clean water is until you need it. We have a whole house filter in our home, as well as a reverse osmosis on our fridge water, because I HATE the taste of nasty water. And our non-Austin, unfathomably overpriced city water tastes nasty. We’ve all been in restaurants with that chlorine-y water or at a relative’s house who serves ice that’s been sitting in her freezer for three months. Gross.

But Austinites would be happy for that nasty tap water today. All the local Starbucks are closed (though you’d think if any place could boil water, it’d be them), grocery stores have tossed all produce that was sprayed with city water, most eateries are closed (save the few that have workers coming in early to boil massive quantities of water to wash vegetables and clean dishes, while serving canned drinks), and no schoolchildren can drink from faucets. Needless to say, all of the plastic bottles have flown off the shells. Not a great time for such an environmentally-aware city.

And how are folks bathing? You’ve got me. They say it could last up to 14 days. Things could be worse, of course. But let’s never take clean water for granted.

The website cited above states that 99% of earth’s water is not drinkable. Most of you right now have a glass of water, or a mug of tea or coffee (made with clean water) adjacent to your keyboard. We are blessed, folks. The fortunate ones.