utenzi

For anyone living on lakefront property, this is a scene straight out of their nightmares. Upstate SC is in the midst of a record breaking drought. Nearby Atlanta was in the news this past Summer due to their water woes ---Lake Lanier, their main source of water, nearly running dry--- but Atlanta's been getting rain the past few months. Not so the area in which my parents live. Despite the two only being 90 miles apart the rain enjoyed by Metro Atlanta just hasn't visited Lake Hartwell. The picture on the left is of the inlet that my parents live on. That's their dock straight ahead. I'm standing where the bridge to the dock is usually moored. Over the past 2 years, as the water receded, people moved their docks out from the normal lake bank to follow the water. As you can see, that's stopped since there is no water there at all. This area normally hits depths of 30 plus feet of water. The lake is down over 22 feet and once the channel to the main lake went dry---ar...

Much of the southeast is in a multiple year drought. This is certainly the case where I live in eastern NC and where my parents live in western SC. However, oddly enough, anytime I visit my parents, it rains here. I took this picture yesterday in the late afternoon. Sure doesn't look very drought-like now does it? In fact, it's rained all three days I've been here. Weird. Now to be honest, on Friday and today the amount of rain was minimal, but it did rain. And on Saturday there was 0.38 inches according to the digital rain gauge on my parent's deck. That's a pretty decent shower. Still, Lake Hartwell is down something like 14 feet from the full water mark and there's a lot of docks around the lake that are not only stranded on dry land, but you can't even see water from some of them. Wouldn't that stink? Not only does this limit the water recreation aspect for the homeowner but also there's a value situation. Homes on the lake go for 3 times what th...

Here on the Eastern side of NC we've largely been without rain all Summer long. We had a hard rain on Friday--between a half inch to two inches depending on location--and it was the first recorded rainfall here in 4 weeks. I went to Duke Forest on Saturday hoping to get some pictures of the stream running again what with the influx of that water. Ha! Just a few isolated pools of water there. This is the dryest I've ever seen the streams and rivers of the region in the 9 years that I've lived here. Normally all the rocks in that picture above are covered with running water. Now just the lowest spots have a little standing water--and that's after having a deluge of rain just the night before. No fish in that river anymore! I might go back today to explore the upper reaches of the stream a little further...