This winter’s flooding in the Midwest could herald the beginning of the end for the United States

Don't mention the elephant in the room!

The Possible End of the United States

This winter’s flooding in the Midwest could herald the beginning of the end for this country. Barring some miracle, this flooding has given such a hit that the country may never recover.

Ira Lee White

Medium,
29 March, 2019

The Impact on People


When a person has been through a flood, it takes a toll mentally that can take years to overcome. The number of issues one has to deal with can be overwhelming. One’s home has just been made unlivable. Personal items and items needed on a daily basis are all destroyed and the mess has to be cleaned up. Your employment and cash flow is interrupted. With most Americans unable to take care of an emergency costing $500, this will be devastating. The Salvation Army and the Red Cross will be there but due to the scope of the disaster, their services will be overwhelmed. FEMA has suffered cutbacks and will be unable to respond in a meaningful way.


People will not have their heads wrapped around the problem but will somehow have to find safe shelter, potable water, food, and medical care for themselves and their families. The full impact of what has happened will not hit them until sometime later. In addition, there is more rain forecast and there will be the snow melt to deal with as well. This combination creates a pressure cooker sort of reaction in the brains of the people going through this. They have just seen the destruction of what took them years to build and there is no end in sight. This is a huge psychological hit that will inflict poor communities more than the rich who will have the mobility and the money to move away. In any case, the mental health, as well as the physical health of the people directly affected, will be a cause for great concern over the next couple of years.


The Impact on Animals


Thousands of animals, both domestic and wild, have died. The cost of dealing with their corpses will be expensive. The loss of food animals will also be expensive as it will take time to replace them. In addition, much of the animal food is grown in the Midwest and with this taken out, there will be shortages of food for domestic animals. Prices will eventually rise and the number of breeding animals will be reduced so that future numbers will be much smaller than we are used to.


The price of every kind of animal food, including dog food much of which has corn and wheat in it, will rise. This will translate to higher costs in everything from the cost of keeping your pet to the cost of meat and cereals. In the meantime, due to the post-flood conditions, disease will be rampant and more animals will die and will not be available for food. The end result will be the decimation of our cheap meat and cereal food supply. This will impact poor communities all over the nation and will to some degree end our ability to prop up our economy with grain exports.


Meanwhile, in the natural world, disease will be rampant. A temporary rise in predators and scavengers will arise only to crash once the availability of easy prey and carcasses disappear. This will be followed by waves of other imbalances as Nature tries to right herself. It will take years.


The Impact on the Environment


When a flood washes through an area, the water picks up and stirs up all sorts of things. Septic tanks overflow, sewer lines are inundated, water flowing through garages, across roads, parking lots and through businesses that use or handle toxic chemicals will be contaminated with these substances. A toxic soup of chemicals and dangerous bacteria covers the land. Imagine how much contamination is in the Midwest right now with thousands of acres of land under water. In addition to this, the mosquito season will be lengthened heightening the opportunities for the spread of disease.


This is only the beginning. Flood waters have inundated toxic Superfund sites, some containing radioactive materials. This contamination is now spread across vast areas. The run-off from homes and businesses is contamination on a scale that is massive enough. The run-off from these toxic Superfund sites will add so much contamination to this that it will be off the scale. In addition, it has been estimated that over 1 million private wells have been contaminated and who knows how many urban centers have had their water supply impacted. It will take years to clean this up if it is at all possible. Where will people and animals get their water in the meantime? How will anyone be able to even grow a garden if the water used to keep it alive is toxic as is the ground where it grows?


The Impact on Infrastructure


Our infrastructure is already crumbling. But now roads are washed away or covered with thick mud, dams have breached, bridges have been washed out or damaged. The addition of the flood waters from the spring melt will add billions on to the cost of fixing it. Electrical grids, water systems, sewage systems, roads, railroads, bridges, dams, and power plants will have to be repaired or replaced.


Homes that have been flooded will have to be torn down. Sheetrock sucks up water so that if a foot of water gets in the house, the toxic water will be sucked up to a height of perhaps four feet or more depending on the length of time water is in the house. Toxic mold will proliferate. Wood will rot, cement will crack and all items in the house including appliances and furniture will have to be disposed of. The people living there will lose most of what they had. They will need changes of clothes, soap, toothbrushes, OTC medications and a host of other things including a place to stay. They will most likely not be able to return to their homes for a very long time if at all.


The Impact on the Economy


The cost of clean-up and rebuilding will be immense and will take years. I read a report that estimated the cost to be at least $3 billion. In my opinion, this is quite small in comparison to the actual cost which will only be realized in time. It has been estimated that in Nebraska, 2,000 or more homes have been damaged or destroyed. It cost my family $40,000 dollars to renovate our home after two feet of water entered it in 2001. Repairs will not be this cheap at this time and full replacement will be very high depending on the size of the home. If we take a mean cost of replacing or repairing these homes, at today’s cost it could run as high as $100,000 average. This times 2,000 comes out to $200 million in Nebraska alone and this does not take into account the spring run-off which will start shortly and wreak more havoc. In addition, Nebraska lost 340 businesses. I haven’t any idea how much it will cost to replace them but it will be massive. Nebraska estimates business losses at $85 million and infrastructure at $449 million.


Crops have been lost and animals have died as well. The estimates for this are also quite low as they do not take into account the long term effects which will include higher consumer prices and loss of exports which will, in turn, result in more borrowing by the Federal and State governments with interest. Nor do they take into account the money needed to clean up the carcasses to prevent a public health crisis. Nebraska has estimated that there has been a loss of $400 million in animals and $450 million in crops. The loss will continue. For some time the land will not be fit for growing or grazing anything. Removing the mud cake that will cover the land and bake hard in the hot summer sun will not be cheap. Keep in mind, this is just Nebraska. North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri have all been greatly impacted with some of the flooding also impacting the Border States. In any case, the state of Nebraska estimates its current losses at $1.3 billion and the spring melt hasn’t begun yet.


In addition to the lost wages, lost business due to closure or destruction, there will be ongoing losses to government income and business taxes, sales of luxury goods, even sales of necessities. Exports will be affected in both the long and short term. The amount of rebuilding that will be needed will raise the price of materials to go along with the rise in food prices. The cleanup of radiation and toxic chemicals, if done properly, will add another fortune to the overall expense. Medical costs, both for physical and mental health which are difficult to estimate but guaranteed to be expensive, will be added in. Insurance premiums for business and homeowners will go up to cover the companies’ losses. The costs will ripple out through the economy causing loss of discretionary income which will result in losses not directly related to the flooding.


Who will pay for all this? We are already running a historic deficit on the federal level. FEMA does not have a great track record and with Trump at the helm, he will be even more useless now than he has been for the last disaster. Besides, when the cost keeps going up and the time for recovery gets longer, will Trump do like he is now doing with hurricane aid to another group of American citizens, the Puerto Ricans, and call for stopping aid because it is taking too much money and too long to complete? You can bet his money making trips to Mar a Largo will not cease nor will he chip in by donating his salary as president. Congress, as it is now constituted, will make a show of providing aid but it won’t be enough. They have regimes to change and wars to finance. The rich will chip in only as much as it favors them. Many state governments are already struggling. Almost one-third of the population of the US has been or will be affected before the spring runoff ends. Those folks will not have much to contribute to their own disaster. Insurance companies will chisel their way through this providing as little as possible to those who even have insurance. Some companies may even face bankruptcy. Some of the crops and animals will be insured by the Federal Government but the sheer mass of the loss will put a strain on the system.


People all over the country are already living hand to mouth. Most cannot even afford a $400 emergency. The economic strain put on this country by the flooding, the flooding to come and any other disasters we will encounter in this coming year will put a lot of stress on this country and its leadership. Perhaps the title of this piece is a little hyperbolic, but I do believe we are in for some very rough times, especially if we get hit with another disaster on top of this one.