Natural Disaster (1998)

Today's Golden Oldie is a Dry Bones cartoon done 12 years ago in the winter of 1998. Back then the weather had suddenly turned rough and we were caught in freezing downpours. We were cold and wet, but on TV we saw the devastation that a brutal hurricane had caused in Nicaragua.

Israel's balmy Spring-like weather disappeared today. We were caught in thunderstorms and forced to face leaking roofs. A computer that sits in my living-room has gone dark. Apparently it's been damaged by a power outage caused by a lightning strike. Of course it is impossible to complain at the "suffering" I've been put through by Mother Nature in the face of the horrifying natural disaster that just hit the people of Haiti.

But today's cartoon was about Nicaragua in 1998. Below is a contemporary report from the U.S. National Climatic Data Center on that disaster:

"An estimated 3800 dead with perhaps as many as 7,000 others still missing. Two million people directly affected and 500,000 - 800,000 homeless. Intense near-stationary rain bands over western Nicaragua on Thursday and Friday (October 29-30) caused tens of inches of rain to fall. The crater lake atop the dormant Casita volcano filled and part of the walls collapsed on Friday, October 30, causing mud flows that eventually covered an area ten miles long and five miles wide. At least four villages were totally buried in the mud that was several feet deep. Over 2,000 of the dead were from the areas around the collapsed volcano near Posoltega. In many cases, survivors had to wait days before the mud had dried enough to walk to rescuers."- more