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You know how statistics can lie, so please don't feel slighted if your state isn't mentioned.
In my quest to stay up to date on any and everything related to flood recovery in this area, I come across a lot of diverse and interesting information:
Bats are very good for controlling bug pests such as mosquitos, but they also carry diseases that are transmittable to humans. The article compared them to deer mice, which carry the often-fatal hantavirus and breathing dust from their feces is how people get it. My chances of coming into direct contact with a bat are very slim, but I am constantly having to clean up poop from deer mice. One time a microbiologist said some people might develop an immunity from years of low-level exposure, and I hope that is the case for me.
With climate change, the snow melt in Arctic Alaska is coming earlier and earlier, at the rate of about 1/2 day per year. "The rates of advancement in earlier breeding are higher in Arctic birds than in other temperate bird species, and this accords with the fact that the Arctic climate is changing at twice the rate."
Read more at: Earlier Snowmelt Affecting Arctic Birds
The concern is that the birds will alter their normal migratory patterns. Even though the climate may be trending warmer, there will be off years where the snowmelt is later, and they will be unprepared.
Studies of geological formations along the Colorado River near Moab, Utah have shown that there are been more major flooding events that shaped the rivers in the southwest than previously thought. It looks like historically there have been around 13 major floods per millennium, more frequently than previously thought.
https://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-80554292/
Prior to September 2013, our previous flood of any size - depicted as a "100-year flood," was in 1976. Nobody has decided if the flood here in September was a 500-year, or a 100-year flood. On one level we realized that a 100-year flood means the probability is .01% chance of a similar event in any given year, and a similarly devastating event could happen two or more years in a row, but our gut feeling was that we were safe until 2076.
Our local little town of Estes Park (6000 people) recently acquired "a used military Humvee, received for free from the US military through Department of Defense Excess Property Program, or the 1033 program. This program is authorized under federal law and managed through the Defense Logistics Agency's Law Enforcement Support Office. It provides surplus Department of Defense military equipment to state and local civilian law enforcement agencies. Local law enforcement agencies receive notices of equipment that is available for use in their organizations. The Humvee was originally used for special operations. The Estes Park emergency response team will utilize the vehicle for deployment to off-road areas that could not normally be accessed with a standard sedan."
As Wars Wind Down, Small Town Caps Inherit armored vehicles
They also bought a used SWAT command center vehicle from Boulder, CO - a college town - for $4000. You know that owning these aggressive type vehicles is going to motivate the police department to find opportunities to use them. Local citizens are trying to figure out where in the city limits there are any off-road areas that the town's fleet of SUVs (supplementing the sedans referenced in the article) can't get to. Yes, there is lots of off-road around here, lots and lots, but it's out of the town cops' area. I think they want an excuse to respond to emergency calls out of their jurisdiction. And who in their right mind would turn down a free vehicle
This is what they got:
But this would have been more fun to see coming down the street in the annual Snowflake Parade:
