200,000 people are being evacuated.
The Oroville Dam, in northern Californa is in "imminent" danger of fialing, forcing the evacuation of several towns along the Feather River. If the dam actually breaks, prepare for a very real break of confidence in the markets because the elephant that sits in the room of the US economy is more and more our crumbling infrastructure and a serious incident like this will bring it right to the foreground and the situation is dire indeed.
For one thing, our disaster response capabilities are woefully inadequate. As we saw in New Orleans years go, we simply don't have enough National Guardsmen to deal with real disasters and the State of Califonia has put their ENTIRE force on alert for this potential catastrophe – all 26,000 of them.
That's right, just 26,000 National Guardsmen in a state with 39 Million people facing a castastrophe that is putting 70,000 homes in immediate danger of Katrina-like damage. Things can get ugly very fast if the shit hits the dam….
But the real disaster will hit the markets because it's very abstract that the US has a grade of D+ according to the 2013 infrastructure report card and, at the time, we needed $3,600,000,000,000 ($3.6Tn) to make necessary repairs. President Obama repeatedly was blocked by the Republican Congress from making improvements of any kind, with last year's $478Bn request dying 52 to 45 along party lines. The Oroville Dam was one of the emergeny projects that would have been fixed – thanks GOP!
“It is disgraceful,” Senator Sanders said. “No one denies our roads, bridges, waste water plants, water systems and rail are in a state of collapse. We used to lead the world in infrastructure, but now we’re in 12thplace.”
He added, “This amendment proposed $478 billion over a six-year period, which would not only rebuild our crumbling infrastructure but would put some nine million people back to work for the creation of new jobs."
While we have all had our heads collectively in the sand…
