Flood Resources

Despite the threat of severe weather ebbing for a time, the flooding in Gibson County has been widespread, continues to be widespread, and will likely be a threat for the near future.

To ease the burdens of those dealing with flooding, emergency managers and organizations in the county are mobilized. To ease the troubled minds of any in the county, Purdue Extension has ample information (the best way to fight fear) on mitigating flood damage or cleaning up after the damage has been done.

For paper copies of any publication, please call the Gibson County Purdue Extension Office. One of the better resources we have to offer is called "First Steps to Flood Recovery," and this publication is currently available in our office, at the Red Cross office in Princeton, the USDA offices of SWCD, FSA, and NRCS in Princeton, and at the Gibson County Heath Department. A web link to the information is available at this address: http://www.extension.purdue.edu/floodpub/.

The Extension Disaster Education Network (EDEN) is the main source for extension materials on natural disasters. By going to http://eden.lsu.edu/Topics/Hazards/Floods/Pages/Default.aspx, you can prepare yourself.

If you've been watching any of the broadcast meteorologists, you've heard the grim report that, despite all the tornadic activity in the Southeast and Midwest thus far, May is the month when most tornadoes occur, on average. Please prepare accordingly: http://eden.lsu.edu/Topics/Hazards/Tornado/Pages/default.aspx.

Should versus Am

Well, it's muggy, humid day in Gibson County. Still a little wet from some light rain this morning. The South Annex is pretty comfortable on floor one, but cool air sinks.

What I should be doing for the remaining three hours until the Farm Bureau meeting tonight: Catch up on climate change research, go through about 12 soybean rust articles, and get to work on formatting a newsletter.

What I will undoubtedly be doing: Glued to weather.unisys.com and weather.gov, I will impatiently watch for radar updates and soak up as many different forecast discussions on the possibilities of severe weather this evening. In the end, this cold front that is setting up ever so slowly will probably arrive after dark, ruining convective instability. The front will also probably wait until I'm already in bed to produce an unspectacular thunderstorm for the sole purpose of robbing me of sleep.

Maybe both shoulds and wills get done this evening. One can always hope. Either way, farm visits tomorrow should restore my normal unwavering positivity.

In Need of Rainy Days

I spent two years over in Orange County from 2008-2010 serving in a split 4-H and Ag position with Purdue Extension. Now, during that time, in a county known mainly for woodlands and cattle grazing, contacting farmers was not too difficult. Everything was put on hold to cut hay, but everyone tended to have a slightly different schedule for cutting hay. Only a handful of farmers had enough tillable acres to really be off-the-grid during planting season. Gibson County is nothing like Orange County. Anhydrous tanks are on the move, sprayers are burning down weeds, and I cannot really contact ANYONE unless precipitation is actively falling. Allow me to amend that last statement: I feel awful attempting to contact ANYONE when this much is happening around the county. Farmers are some of the more outgoing, cordial folks around. Very few will intentionally skip or screen a phone call. Which compounds the sense of guilt I feel by asking them to take time out of their day to discuss plans for researchers to scope out their fields. Important business, but none-too-urgent when knives full of anhydrous are going into the ground. So, this is a great time of year to wait for rain while building a newsletter email list. For updates on Gibson County and surrounding area agricultural and natural resource news, send an email to hschmitz@purdue.edu. Newsletters start going out in May.