COLLINS: If the right one don’t get you, then the left one will
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LAST NIGHT, I was thinking about the disastrous combination of flash floods and wildfires when the words from the popular song “Sixteen Tons” came into my head. The song was first released back in 1946 by Merle Travis, then became a huge hit for popular singer Tennessee Ernie Ford ten years later. Travis wrote the song based on his family’s life working the old coal mines.
It was the type of hardscrabble lifestyle that left many people broken. If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
I guess the reason I thought about those words is that many people don’t get a break from the teeter-totter combination of dangers we face. Wildfires continue to plague us, costing us many millions each year, both in the loss of homes and crops. Those fires cause unstable soil conditions which now have led to flash flooding when it rains. Despite the rain, we still have serious drought conditions, which can lead to water shortages and even more damage. We’ve done some work trying to contain sudden surges of water, yet we still have flooding in the same areas year after year. We’ve put a lot of money and effort into trying to mitigate the loss from wildfires. But Mother Nature finds new ways to test us all the time.
So which comes first — the chicken or the egg? Do we plan to spend big on fire prevention and immediate land restoration? Or do we try to deal with the floodwater racing down our streets, trying to find ways to corral this water to use in drier times. There isn’t enough money to fully implement both plans. The balance needs to be found between dealing with the fires and dealing with the flooding.
