Going Though a Drought

Almost all my life I have lived in an area where I have never had to deal with drought. While in Bowling Green and Toledo, Lake Erie is right there. As a kid I grew up along the Ohio river. Every year there was more concern over flooding than drought. The worst I could ever drought conditions was during two months where there was no rain, but it wasn't that bad, all the local farmers had OK years.



For the entire month of August North Carolina has had only one day below 90. and we have actually had at least ten days over 100. Then we also set a record for average temperature in a month. August beat the old record by two degrees (old record 82.5 and the new record is 84.5). To compound matters we have had very little rain in that same time. Of hand I think Fried Chicken Drive has had two rain storms and only one lasted more than 10 minutes. This has led to the state calling for stage 1 drought measures. Mostly this means you can only water you lawn one day a week, but if you get caught watering on any other day you will receive a $200 fine for the first offense and you will have you water shut off for a second. Also the Governor is asking people to cut back on their water usage by 20%.

Most people here are use to droughts, North Carolina has one every year, but this time every one is a little worried. With no real rain in sight it's a little scary. I hope we get a some rain soon, I'm afraid to see what stage 2 of a drought is.

The Aquafina Stock Just When Up

Yesterday was the start of my 7 day work week and of course it's suppose to be the hottest 7 days of the year. As I'm getting ready yesterday The Wife mentions I should take a cooler full of little water bottles. I balk at the idea I would rather take one large bottle and just fill it up through out the day. Since she's The Wife I finally lug out the cooler full of bottles to my truck.

I'm glad she made me take it. By 1:00pm it was already in the mid 90s and the heat index was oer 100. Of course I was sent to every festival or outside event in the triangle. The largest was what I called hippy-fest or more accurately the Eno Festival. It's a watershed that leads to the Nuese River and that's where most of the area gets its water. I walk around getting video of people in tye-dye and listening to their folk music and poems then I shoot some booths about how bad Bush is, why you should not eat meat, 9 booths about bio-diesel... serious 9 booths! I'm not a Republican, but I just hate hippies. I see a group setting like this and all I can think of is "Hey man, Bush is the devil and we need to impeach the man. I would have voted for Kerry, but I don't vote. You see the man wants you to vote and that's how they get you... voter registration!" Grrrrr just pisses me off.

OK off the tangent and back to me and water. I could not find a person in charge and after 45 minutes of shooting and lugging around nearly 50 pounds of equipment I find some one who gets me the leader of the festival. By this time I'm having trouble catching my breath and I notice I'm sweating more. Crap I'm getting heat exhaustion. I've had this a couple of times and the signs are not very obvious. I start to sweat, I get a little short of breath just walking around, I start to sweat even more than normal, my legs start to not respond and I can't walk a straight line, I stop sweating, I can't think normal (I know I know, I don't think normal to begin with) and then comes the shaking. I was up to the shaking when a couple of volunteers hand me a large water I chug it down. I know I knock hippies, but everyone in charge of the Eno Festival were very nice... damn them for challenging my stereo-types. We start the interview and I finish up fast, I know I need to get to the car. I stagger across a large field and get in. I open my cooler with 5 16.9 oz bottles of water and down #1. I call in and I have to stop talking to the desk because I'm shaking so I down a second. I finish up my call and head to the next outdoor assignment, while chugging a third bottle a 12oz can of Coke Zero. I kept drinking non-stop for the next hour and a half. I get sent to the USA v Japan game and I need more fluids. Here is the count of Saturdays in take

1 32oz fountain drink (coke)

2 16.9 oz bottles of water

1 12 oz Coke Zero

1 20 oz Gatorade

1 32 oz Gatorade

1 12 oz lemonade (ball game)

1 12 oz Mountain Dew (ball game)

1 cup of water (guessing 16 oz)

And I was still thirsty after all that. Then Sunday was a repeat.

6 16.9 oz bottles of water

2 20 oz glass of tea

1 12 oz can of lemonade (ball game)

1 32 oz Powerade

so over all this weekend I drank around 350 oz. I believe that's nearly 3 gallons over two days and as of 10:30 Sunday night I'm still thirsty. I know North Carolina is hot, but I'm going to struggle for the rest of the summer. I just hope I can carry enough water to get me through the day. The one saving grace is the fact that I am nightside so it is a little cooler. Not by much, but I'll take any small victory.