Environment
Weekend America's coverage of the environment.
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Biloxi's Luck
It's been three years since Hurricane Katrina. The damage to flooding and botched response to the flooding in New Orleans has gotten the most attention. But it was actually Mississippi that received the full brunt of Katrina's 120 mile-per-hour wind and 27-foot storm surge. In Biloxi, Miss., the casinos that sat on huge barges in the bay were washed inland and destroyed. But the coastal casinos are now making record profits, more than one-billion dollars in revenue last year.
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Letters: Share Your Harvest
We received a few scoldings from listeners for our story about backyard gardeners selling their extra produce to grocery stories and restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area. We were reminded that food banks need your extra veggies. It turns out the food bank movement was launched on just this idea.
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Gigs by Canoe
Summer is a time for music, but what happens when your musician can't afford to get to you? Christopher Bell has remedied the rising cost of gas by deciding to canoe to his shows. He's in week two of his six-week tour down the Erie Canal. He hopes to make it to Manhattan by the end of the tour.
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Scaling Swiftcurrent Pass
Swiftcurrent Pass in Glacier National Park rises sharply from Going to the Sun Road, a winding highway that slithers along the edge of a deep valley in the center of the park. From the car, the mountains look impossibly steep and majestic. From the tree-covered trails, they just look impossibly steep.
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Going Solar Gets Cheaper
About three-dozen friends are hanging out on the roof of Kevin Frank's home in Holderness, New Hampshire. They're there to save the environment, and a few bucks in the process.
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Tending the Fire
In the Big Sur area, fires that have burned for a month are now mostly contained. The area's National Parks are open again, but voluntary evacuations are still in effect which means people who live there need special passes to get in. And that includes the monks at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center.
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A Lightning Strike Miracle in Maine
Lightning strikes have sparked hundreds of fires in bone-dry California. But not all lightning is destructive -- take the case of Edwin Robinson, who was struck by a bolt in Maine and suddenly regained his sight and hearing, and even started growing hair on his bald head.
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Waterfalls Along the East River
If you are walking this weekend along the East River in New York City, you might notice something different: waterfalls. It's New York's largest public art project since Cristo's "The Gates" two years ago in Central Park. We talk to residents about their first impressions, and hear from the artist himself.
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Fighting the Endless Skeeter War
Weekend America's John Moe met up with mosquito expert Mike McLean, who works for the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District in Minnesota's Twin Cities area. In this man-mosquito war, it's important to know your enemy -- so Mike took John to an infested pond near Lake Phalen in St. Paul for a little skeeter primer.
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Summer Travel: An Urban Park Stroll
Summer is the traditional time for most folks to "get back to nature." But for some, the idea of heading into the great outdoors is a nightmare. For example, Natalie Edwards. We're calling Natalie's summer trip a "nature intervention." For her, the biggest challenge was taking a evening stroll through Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, New York.
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Recovering from the Chehalis Flood
Last winter, the Chehalis River in the Pacific Northwest swelled with rain and flooded communities in both Oregon and Washington state. One of the farms devastated by the flood was the Black Sheep Creamery, locally famous for its sheep's-milk cheese. Then came a swell of support from volunteers and fans of the farm, who pitched in to rebuild.
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Summer Travel: Authentic Pt. Reyes
Maintaining authenticity is hard once a place becomes a tourist destination. Weekend America's Krissy Clark recently visited Point Reyes Station, an old ranch town about an hour north of San Francisco where deciding what does and doesn't require preservation has raised some debate. This is our latest installment of a series of stories on summer travel.
