Resolutions

Let me just do a quick summary of one of the most significant findings, and I paraphrase heavily: "Do not...repeat, not build all kinds of crap right next to rivers that are prone to flood." A kind of sub-corollary to that principle might be summarized as, "Figure it out, Sherlock."

But every time the water rises, as it did last June, everybody at City Hall sort of leans out toward the western windows with their binoculars trained on the river, watching it inch up bit by bit toward the tops of the levees.

During the campaign, I spoke with a gentleman whose firm built the levees. He's retired now and didn't especially want to get tossed into the briar patch. But he explained to me what will happen if the levees downtown ever are over-topped and then get washed away, like what happened in New Orleans.

He said there are two kinds of floods. One is a "rising flood." That's when the water just keeps inching up higher around the bottoms of the buildings. That's not what will happen here.

If the levees fail in downtown Dallas, we will get what he called a "ravaging flood." That's when a great big body of water suddenly explodes out over ground where it wasn't supposed to go. The result is not a leak. It's a fire hose. And if the body of water in question is a flooded Trinity River, it's King Kong's fire hose.

Given all of that, the answer the city should have come to in the Trinity toll road election was no. Or was it yes? Oh, I already forgot. Whatever you voted to say you did not want them to build a toll road next to the river, that's how the city should have voted.

The city should have said, "Increased risk of ravaging floods downtown? You're kidding me, right? Are you on crack? What do I look like, the president? C'mon, get outta here with that."

Ah, but we did not vote that way, did we? Not a majority of us, anyway. And so now we have to find out what kind of mistake we have made.

I am not yearning for a flood downtown. That would be wrong. What I want is more of a warning flood in some of the outlying areas such as the Park Cities, before the city actually gets a chance to build this stupid toll road.

We'll probably need another really wet May with a long period of soaking rains to fill up the water table and saturate the soil. I hope we won't see the sun all month.

Then around mid-June, I'm going to be hoping for some gigantic gulley-washers with tooth-rattling thunder and end times lightning. When the Dumpsters start sailing down the alleys like river rafts I'll be rubbing my hands in glee, but I'm not going to be really ecstatic until I see whole houses floating down Beverly Drive toward Turtle Creek.

Back on that New Year's resolution, I hasten to add that most of the participants in the anti-toll road campaign are far better persons than I. I bet not a one of them is hoping for a flood the way I am.

In particular, I came out of the whole thing with an enormous admiration for Dallas City Council member Angela Hunt, who certainly has never hoped for a flood in her life. Another thing I hope for this year, or the next, or the next, is her hour of reward.

In a year-end round-up story about city politics, The Dallas Morning News last week said, "many Dallasites now cast Ms. Hunt in the role of political cult hero" because of her role in the Trinity toll road election.

I don't really see the 47 percent of the vote that she won as a cult. Given the juggernaut of money and pressure arrayed against her, I would say she emerged more as a formidable force on the city's near political horizon.

But then, what do you expect from the Morning News, really? My own feelings on that topic are so dark, I would direct the flood straight to the paper's front door if it were not for the danger this might pose to a certain family member who works there. I'd hate to be responsible for that bad hair day.

And I'm not. I'm not responsible for squat. I can't cause floods. You know that. I explained who caused this one. Not me. I just want to see it. So bad.

Picture me here at my desk. Holding the calendar with both hands. Dreaming. Oh, Year 2008. Bring it on.