Sunday Morning, Waiting for Rain
It’s Sunday morning. There is a wide area of rain sweeping across the nation, bringing storms and destruction to the unlucky few. I’ve seen it on the news this morning, and know it is on the way here. The big storms are all to the south, so we should only get some soaking rain. There should be no tornadoes here this morning, and that is good.
If it were not so expensive, people might build homes that were impervious to storms. If it were not for flooding, people could live in underground warrens, dug out tunnels below the ground where storms could not harm them. Underground homes would be easier to heat and cool. You could grow food crops on top of your house. People could travel back and forth to their jobs on underground railways. The surface of the earth could be covered with solar cells and windmills to supply power to the people living underground. Robots could do the hard labor of farming and manufacturing.
Of course, there are other problems with living underground. Lack of sunlight does nobody any real good. There would be the constant threat of cave ins. Floods could potentially drown people like rats. It would be quiet, however. The earth absorbs sound well. There would be no traffic noise outside your windows. Storms could just blow by overhead and uproot all the trees without wrecking your house.
Of course, underground cities would be massively expensive to construct. You would need ventilation equipment to keep the air fresh. It would take a lot of steel to shore up the roof and walls. You would probably have to install several flat screen TVs on the walls to show live pictures of the outside so people don’t go stir crazy from being inside all the time. There would have to be good artificial lightning all the time. Plumbing might be a problem, as lines would be buried deeply. Still, it could be done.
I’m not sure if underground cities are the new wave of the future. Maybe if people built homes by welding together I-beams and setting them in concrete they would not blow down in tornadoes. Maybe if people set up millions of windmills they would absorb the damaging energy of storms and keep destruction to a minimum. Who knows. Perhaps there is some survival value to being lucky. One thing is for certain. When the rains come, you will get wet, if you are not under some kind of roof.
