Robert Lee, TX - 25% Of Normal Rainfall, Reservoir 99% Dry, Worst Drought In 116 Years

[hatrack]

Welcome to the future, y'all!

ROBERT LEE — Garrett Gilliam stared hard into the brown hills beyond the drying lake bed as a vaporous black column spiraled into the cloudless West Texas sky. Maybe it was smoke; maybe just another heat-driven dust devil. Either way, trouble was in the air.

A young man in a white cowboy hat, Gilliam is Coke County's ag extension agent and a volunteer firefighter. He has witnessed firsthand the impact of a near-unprecedented drought that has depleted Robert Lee's water supply and spawned more than three dozen wildfires that have raced across the region's arid hills this year. "That's in the next county," Gilliam muttered, lowering his eyes, his relief palpable.

With Texas gripped in a seemingly intractable drought that state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon has declared the worst single-year dry spell in 116 years, Robert Lee, population 1,106, has emerged as an alarming worst-case example of what scant rainfall and triple-digit temperatures can do.

Since January, Robert Lee — named for the iconic Army officer who pursued Indians through the region before the Civil War - has received only about 3 inches of rain, about a fourth of its midyear average. Daily temperatures routinely approach 110 degrees in the shade. The E.V. Spence Reservoir on the nearby Colorado River - Robert Lee's source of drinking water - is more than 99 percent empty. Without a miraculous meteorological turnaround, this town 30 miles north of San Angelo could be bone dry by early next year.

EDIT

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7697219.html

[fasttense]

1. God must really hate Texas. n/t

[BlueJazz]

2. Apparently ..even with all that praying, God said "No"

[cutlassmama]

3. How's all that praying working out for ya Ricky?

[Uben]

4. Don't blame Perry......

.....god just doesn't like republicans. And looking at the flooding in the north east, he doesn't like democrats either! And to think we put our trust in him! I'm looking for third party god, got any suggestions? I was thinking Percules, the god of coffee.

[txlibdem]

5. The more you know about Perry the more plausible he IS bringing the wrath of God down on TX

He is one crooked snake in the grass. If my baptist upbringing (all 4 years of it) is right, there will be fire and brimstone aplenty waiting for Ricky.

Edit to add my favorite anti-Perry ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ426sm6olM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUAWvP_x-MQ

[MrMickeysMom]

6. Brother, can you spare a ....

I was going to say, "unbelievable".... but, it's unsustainable.

[Pooka Fey]

7. K&R

[MelissaB]

8. I'm in San Angelo, and I can tell you that it's bad here. I don't know that San Angelo is

sustainable. The city is building a pipeline to bring in water with radium for us in the next 3 years or so. Sounds appetizing, eh?

Ranchers are selling their healthy animals and shooting the unhealthy ones. I've never seen anything like this.

[phantom power]

9. more climate refugees on the way

:(

[Barrett808]

10. "Our lawns will be green again."

Robert Lee's current trials, City Secretary Kay Torres promised, will pass.

"We will overcome this," she said. "Our lawns will be green again."


Robert Lee High School Superintendent and Athletic Director, Aaron Hood, adjusts the underground sprinkler system that is providing the life support for the school's' dried football field, 13 August 2011 10:18PM. The school waters the field nightly, putting on over 6,000 gallons a day costing $200 per load of water that is trucked in from a neighboring city. Michael Paulsen / Houston Chronicle

[hatrack]

11. Or maybe they won't . . .

nt