Kindgo
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Weekend News Today
Lead: Faith
Source: Yahoo News/Reuters
Sat Aug 10,2002 -- With hands clasped and eyes cast downward, about 100 desperate farmers and rural residents gathered at their Grand Rapids, OH church on Wednesday to seek divine intervention in an extended drought in Ohio and much of the United States that is fast becoming one of the worst in the last century. Drought has taken a grip on more than 1/2 of the United States, experts calculate. 26 states are suffering severe drought conditions and "exceptional drought" -- the worst level of drought measured -- has blanketed 13 states, including New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah. In a typical year, drought hits only 10 to 12% of the country. But this year, "It is pretty dire," said Mark Svoboda, climatologist for the National Drought Mitigation Center. "We're seeing agricultural impacts...We have a lot of hydrological problems with wells and reservoirs and streams going dry. This is going to total billions of dollars when it is all said and done."
From southern California to South Carolina and from Montana to New Mexico, individuals and industries are suffering.
Richard Spera, owner of Canal Lakes Resort in South Carolina, is one of thousands of operators of recreational businesses, like marinas, restaurants, and lodges, who has watched his income drop along with lake levels. "The drought has been knocking a hole in our economics," he said. "We don't have enough water."
Crops are withering in heat-baked fields, and ranchers have sold off herds rather than let them starve for lack of pasture. "I have never seen it like this and I'm 60 years old," said Richard Traylor, who owns 37,000 acres in Texas and New Mexico but has sold off much of his cattle herd already.
Tourism has also been hit as the drought turned state and national parks into kindling. So far this year, wildfires have scorched more than 4.6 million acres, twice the average acreage burned in the previous decade.
There is also a scramble for new water sources as town and city residents are urged to stop watering lawns and washing cars across many states. In Monticello, Georgia, south of Atlanta, officials this week banned all outside watering, saying creek levels were so low that the area could run out of all water in 30 to 45 days.
National estimates for drought-related losses are still being tallied, with agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture waiting for harvesting of corn and soybean and other key crops to conclude before loss figures are compiled. This summer's wheat harvest underscored the devastation as production fell to the lowest levels in nearly 30 years. In Nebraska, experts have pegged the losses at more than $1.4 billion. "It is really, really awful," said Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns. "Even some of the folks who lived through the 'dust bowl' years will say it is as bad as it has ever been," he said referring to a severe drought in the 1930s.
In Colorado, Denver's water reservoirs hit a historic low on July 1, at only 66% of capacity. And this month, Colorado Gov. Bill Owens signed into law a bill creating a $1 million emergency drought fund so farmers and ranchers can buy water.
State leaders are clamoring for Washington to allocate disaster aid. Though the scope of assistance needed has not been determined, some call for more than $5 billion.
A key factor in the water shortage is the lack of adequate snowpack in the mountains. Melting snow from higher elevations usually feeds rivers and streams, but this year, snowpacks in the Rocky Mountains were only 1/4 of normal levels -- one of lowest on record, said Douglas LeComte, a drought specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Lack of rain is the other obvious factor. In Dodge City, Kansas, rainfall over the 14 months ending in July amounted to the driest period so far since 1952-53.
Water shortages are prompting battles between upstream and downstream states and between individuals and businesses. In Jasper County, South Carolina, more than 100 people turned out last week for a meeting with state officials after a drop in an underground aquifer left them without water. Rural residents blamed business operators for using too much water. North and South Carolina are fighting over North Carolina's refusal to release water from its reservoirs downstream. "People are battling for water like we've never seen before," said Hope Mizzell, South Carolina's drought program coordinator. This year's drought is the extension of more than 2 years of very dry conditions in many states, said LeComte. And some areas are experiencing their 5th consecutive year of drought. The conditions are near those seen during the country's most devastating drought in the 1930s -- the "dust bowl" years, when some 60% of the United States was affected.
Global warming, changing weather patterns, bad land management and many other factors are involved in the debate over what caused the current drought. But right now the focus is more on when it will end, as so many states need water.
Editor's Note: Read Deuteronomy 28 for list of detailed blessings & cursings on a nation when they turn from God. You'll be amazed! Here is the drought part in the list.
Deuteronomy 28:22-23 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron.
(Job speaking) in ..Job 12:13-16a "To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are His. What He tears down cannot be rebuilt; the man He imprisons cannot be released. If He holds back the waters, there is drought; if He lets them loose, they devastate the land. To Him belong strength and victory;
Haggai 1:7-11 This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways. Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build the house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honored," says the Lord. "You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?" declares the Lord Almighty. "Because of My house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with his own house. Therefore, because of you the heavens have withheld their dew and the earth its crops. I called for a drought on the fields and the mountains, on the grain, the new wine, the oil and whatever the ground produces, on men and cattle, and on the labor of your hands."
Wow, there's very interesting stuff in Jeremiah & others too, where God brought drought on areas because they sinned against God, and for when they worship idols (things people put ahead of God, and other false gods, etc). And He even said how the prophets and priests are prophesying that God will stop the drought and they preached that that was His will. But God said they are lying and will be doomed as well. As God shows, many will say 'what people want to hear', but God is in control. He is a God of love, but also a God of judgment as needed. He is perfectly holy, and requires holiness, for nations to follow Him first IN EVERY AREA OF LIFE, and not to be left out of any of it. He wants our longing, love, & devotion, because He made us and knows us better than anyone. He knows what's good for us, and what's bad. And when nations are turning from Him, discipline/cursings come. But, only God knows the outcome of the nation's future, because whatever they do on the outside...He knows the truth of the heart. In Jeremiah it said the people were then crying out to God to save them from the drought, etc...but God said no, He wouldn't listen to them. See, God knows the true HEART, what's really on the inside...not just some outside religious actions because something was taken from them.
As the saying goes, it's better to be on God's side than on the wrong side. There's only victory on one side..and that's when He's holding you in the precious palm of His hand, in unconditional love thru a personal true heart faith in Jesus. Time to truly wake up people, and have a TRUE HEART FAITH revival, not outward religious which does nothing for the heart, but an inward spiritual true heart faith that only Jesus can give. And His is FREE AND ETERNAL. PTL! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) God is great! And for true Christians already saved, but you've not been living right, you feel God calling you back to walking with Him daily in a true spiritual walk that only God can help you with...turn to Him today, ask Him to change your life and bring you into a close relationship with Him. What a blessing that is! \0/ God bless you all! And with all the Bible Prophecy signs in every area speeding ahead, we're seeing the PREview/PREshadow of things to come in the tribulation at the door. But for Christians, look up to Jesus. He's coming soon, and we're rapture-bound.
Luke 21:10-11 Then he said to them: "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven.
Matthew 22:36-38 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'This is the first and greatest commandment.
Posts: 4320 | From: Sunny Florida | Registered: Jun 2002
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