A wet wet autumn, tossed flags, the listeners initiate awareness.
Running mildly, the river bifurcating metropolis spanning two northern states, grows heavy with lowered temperatures, its freeze atypical, the listeners remain aware.
Living in the Hinterland has its challenges, remote, fewer who articulate, more clustering, when its not in my backyard should I care, are you listening?
Days length grows, sunshine less oblique, air warms, in turn a frozen river thaws slowly, some become clarions for what will come, their motivations suggested as biased, struggling listeners await personal decisions to act, residing on longstanding easements and manufactured hopes.
It’s here, the river rises to a point of action, daily increase of volume suggest peril, most are hopeful, yet the river dwellers activate vigilance, knowing that a major flood extends over many weeks. From past events, these listeners prepare for a long haul battle.
Probabilistic forecasts based on history and current conditions are adjusted with silent frequency, arm chair quarterbacks challenge from a comfortable distance, no real skin in the game, relying on the suffering of others in advance, their warning.
This canary watches and waits, prepares for the worst knowing that few others will be bothered with his fight, but this, his preference. A cresting river and its highest flow rates approach, will it rain heavily at its peak, please, if you must, snow instead and stay cold; she does.
The ride to the peak is long coming, not surprising like a tornado, the prepared listeners resilient, how long can this crest remain?
The ride down, even longer, the days merge into nights, he walks the bag line inspecting for leaks. A stressed basement runs hard, newly installed sumps keeping up with the pressures of a high water table.
In a retrospective, the graphed peak is behind and offers a deep breath, he choosing vigilance, continues the careful monitoring, not relaxing until the river returns to her constraining banks, controlled, or at least an ample ways from the next crest.