Troubles get deeper
Indignity Vol. 5, No. 182
CLIMATE DISASTERS DEP'T.
The Rising Waters Don't Stop for the Rest of the News
AT LEAST ONE person was killed, two more are missing, and “more than 50 people have been rescued” from villages in western Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News reported, after the remnants of the Pacific storm Typhoon Halong brought 100 mph winds and storm surges of more than 6 feet, inundating the region. “If you imagine the worst-case scenario, that’s what we’re dealing with,” the Coast Guard's Arctic commanding officer, Capt. Christopher Culpepper, told the Daily News.
Joe Allgood
Dozens of houses were caught in the floodwaters; photos and videos captured homes flipped over or floating away, some with their occupants still in them.
These are different images than the images of houses that collapsed into the surf in Buxton, North Carolina, earlier this month, under the twin influences of Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda, which were not the quite same as the images of houses in Buxton with the surf washing all around them as Fox Weather waited to see if this week's nor'easter could make them collapse, too. Further up the East Coast, more video captured the moment yesterday that wind from the nor'easter ripped a panel free from a solar-power installation on a parking lot in Brooklyn and sent it sailing through the air to kill a 76-year-old woman walking by.
Jesse Zanger Managing Editor, CBS New York
Mexican authorities, meanwhile, reported that 64 people were killed and 65 were still missing after days of torrential rains from what Reuters described as an “unnamed depression” struck the Gulf Coast and the center of the country. The New York Times quoted President Claudia Sheinbaum:
“There were no scientific or meteorological conditions that could have indicated to us that the rainfall would be of this magnitude,” Ms. Sheinbaum told reporters, adding that the government’s eyes were mostly on the Pacific, where two storms, Priscilla and Raymond, had formed off western Mexico last week.
The Times noted that local rain totals were as high as 20 inches during the storm, and wrote:
While it’s difficult to draw a connection between any specific downpour and climate change in real time, studies suggest that, as global temperatures rise, storms produce more extreme rain because warm air holds more moisture than cool air.
Michelle Theriault Boots
The Anchorage Daily News was more specific about what happened to Western Alaska:
A dissipating typhoon moving into the Bering Sea is nothing new, said Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate expert affiliated with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. But this storm system, after brewing near Japan, encountered record warm North Pacific Ocean surface water as it moved toward Alaska, supercharging the storm.
“Warm water along its virtually entire track gave it more energy than it otherwise would have,” he said. “There’s certainly a climate change connection there. Would this have happened without an overheated North Pacific? Entirely possible. Probably wouldn’t have been as strong as it wound up being.”
Los Angeles seems to have escaped the threat of mudslides from its own deluge, an out-of-season atmospheric river that had previously brought flash flood warnings to the Bay Area. The storm delivered more rain to L.A. than falls in an entire average month of October, and the most in a single October day since 2009, according to the Los Angeles Times. But it ended up being good news amid the region's interlocking climate catastrophes, the L.A. Times reported:
The storm, classified as a weak, or Level 1, atmospheric river brought enough moisture to Southern California’s drought-stricken landscape to delay fire season for weeks, if not months, said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
And it did so without disintegrating the hills ravaged by January’s Palisades and Eaton fires into large debris flows of rock, mud and debris, Ralph said.
“In a way this is like a Goldilocks atmospheric river,” Ralph said. “It’s sort of just right to be mostly beneficial at this stage of the year.”
WEATHER REVIEWS
New York City, October 9, 2025
★★★★ A branch of the dogwood glowed green in the sun against a shadowed red wall as if it had all spring and summer still before it. It was not just time to find the hoodie but time to zip it up. A mysterious dark thing scuttling across the pavement turned out to be the shadow of a pigeon, the bird itself lost against the blinding sky as it fluttered in for a landing. The light dug in under chipped paint on a railing like a paint scraper. Once the sun was out of the streets and up in the trees, it was hard to believe how bright everything had been a few hours before.
New York City, October 12, 2025
★★ Flocks and flocks of pigeons wheeled at top speed between the tossing treetops and the churned-up clouds. Leaves blew uphill and the legs of a woman's pink pants fluttered. A leafy branch of the maple down the block lay broken by the curb, showing the pale underside of its foliage and a stretch of pale splintered wood. By lunchtime the clouds were evenly gray and the wind was down. The rain held back long enough for the walk to get sandwiches. The lamps and white walls of the bedroom appeared on the windowpanes, as the afternoon light on the balcony weakened till it looked like night. Rain pattered, and somewhere a windchime clanged.
New York City, October 13, 2025
★★ Was it raining or just dripping? What would the difference be? Enough drops were coming down along a stretch of open sidewalk, by water-beaded trash bags, to confirm that some version of the storm was still at it. Flickering images from a malfunctioning digital ad board shone in the puddles on the subway mezzanine. It was raining for sure in Midtown, so that people leaned together under shared umbrellas. Too many hours later, the morning and midday both gone, the umbrellas were furled and just a few flecks of water were blowing. The planters in Bryant Park looked plausibly tropical in the hanging dampness, amid the whining and grinding sounds of the Winter Village under construction.
EASY LISTENING DEP'T.
HERE IS TODAY'S Indignity Morning Podcast!
Tom Scocca
Here is the Indignity Morning Podcast archive!
TOM SCOCCA
ADVICE DEP'T.
HEY! DO YOU like advice columns? They don't happen unless you send in some letters! Surely you have something you want to justify to yourself, or to the world at large. Now is the perfect time to share it with everyone else through The Sophist, the columnist who is not here to correct you, but to tell you why you're right. Direct your questions to The Sophist, at indignity@indignity.net, and get the answers you want.
SANDWICH RECIPES DEP'T.
WE PRESENT INSTRUCTIONS in aid of the assembly of sandwiches selected from Buffalo Cookery: A Collection of Choice Recipes Carefully Selected, by St. Luke's Sunday-School Ladies' Auxiliary, Buffalo, Wyoming in 1916 and available at archive.org for the delectation of all.
BANANA SANDWICHES
Mrs. Jas. Hibbard
Slice four bananas thin, and squeeze the juice of one-half lemon over them; let stand for twenty minutes. Cut crust from oblongs of white bread, spread with a little thick sweet cream that has been slightly sweetened. Arrange the bananas on the bread. Wrap each sandwich in waxed paper before serving.
If you decide to prepare and attempt to enjoy a sandwich inspired by this offering, be sure to send a picture to indignity@indignity.net .
SELF-SERVING SELF-PROMOTION DEP'T.
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