greetings from Grundy, pt. 3
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 07:05AM 
;)
click 'er for bigger
It wasn't until I was leaving that I became aware of it, but since Grundy is built on one of the few flat pieces of land in the county, and that bit of land happens to be in the flood plain at the intersection of the Levisa and the Slate rivers, they're currently in the process of surrounding the town with a concrete levee with movable gates, courtesey of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The county lost most of its records in a 1977 flood, so they have good reason to try to prevent this from happening again.
The only non courthouse large format photograph of this past weekend was from Grundy, somewhere I'd definitely like to visit again, despite my claims of ugliness from the past couple of entries. A scan of the 4x5 original has been added here. Grundy happens to be ripe territory for visual evidence of large scale manipulations of the environment by humans.
Reader Comments (2)
I never understood why people persist in creating living space in potentially dangerous areas. Oh right, the insurance companies and our government will bail us all out when the floods/storms/fires/etc. happen... :-) What, you wanna build in the sand right next to the beach? No problem! Sign your policy here.
I've enjoyed your Grundy series here, and it has caused me to think about how raw land is shaped by man for habitation. Your first photo from Grundy looks to me like there's a human "dam" or barrier separating the human domain from the natural hills and forest beyond.
Here in flat, featureless Houston, the common method of building anything is usually to reduce the land to nothing but dirt first. Our neighborhood was built just that way. The result is that everything existing now (houses, trees, shrubs, green spaces (what few there are), and streets) are 100% man-made or placed by man in a desired fashion (i.e. per some design).
This end result is a totally artificial-looking landscape of wood-frame houses, carpet grass, parked cars, and concrete streets. The air is filled with sounds of passing cars, distant sirens, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, car stereos, barking dogs, and air conditioners (down here in Texas, our AC's are on probably 70% of the year).
You could argue that the clean, orderly appearance of such HOA (home owner's association) governed neighborhoods is beautiful. Why else would so many want to live there? But it's all fake. Not one bit of it was shaped by nature in a natural way.
Yeah, right on TJ! I was going to make the same statement to Joe on his earlier comment on the first Grundy entry. Look at any urban area, and you'll see an environment that has been blasted into submission. The only evidence of the natural world that remains is... the weather. It's going to be a long time before humans will have a grasp on that one.
As for building on flood plains, I've never understood it either. Well, the beach is understandable. You and I wouldn't do it, but there are plenty of selfish SOBs who have no problem with the concept and the reality of putting a building within sight of the surf. As I understand it, these people can only get insurance from the Federal government. Private companies refuse to sell.
But in Grundy it's understandable because there's so little flat land. In fact the entire county of Buchanan has more or less no flat land - except for the mountain tops that have been removed for strip mines. Well, that may be over in West Virginia they're doing that.