THE
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Sudden sinkhole in Alton soccer field prompts questions
Beat the heat Alumnus paints mural this summer with in honor of Metro East snow cones St. Louis City soccer
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Southern Illinois University Edwardsville
Wednesday, July 24, 2024 Vol. 77 No. 33
THE student voice since 1960
THREATS OF EXTREME WEATHER, HEAVY RAINFALL ENDANGER MISSISSIPPI RIVER COMMUNITIES
AVA GALBAN reporter The Mississippi River, the second-longest river in the United States, has always been subject to seasonal fluctuations. However, recent weather patterns have been anything but ordinary. Scientists attribute these changes to a combination of global warming and natural climatic variability. The Gulf of Mexico has seen “isolated marine heat wave conditions,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Marine heat waves are typically defined as ocean temperatures that reach above the 90th percentile for a specified period of time. “This means that the temperatures are warmer than 90 percent of the previous observations for a given time of
year. Marine heat waves can last for weeks, months or years,” NOAA said. “Given that we are in the thick of the Atlantic hurricane season and the tropical North Atlantic is already warm, extremely warm ocean temperatures in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico are concerning. Developing tropical storms that pass into the region may strengthen as a result of these conditions,” NOAA said. This year, Hurricane Beryl made landfall, bringing torrential rains and strong winds. As it moved inland, it dumped massive amounts of water into the lower Mississippi basin, swelling the river and its tributaries. Simultaneously, the northern states, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, have experienced unprecedented rainfall. “As the climate has warmed over recent decades, the most
extreme precipitation days have become more intense across the U.S. As precipitation extremes intensify, the wettest days each year bring increasing flood hazards. And this intensification trend has been widespread,” Climate Central said. This has led to rivers and streams feeding into the Mississippi to overflow, intensifying the situation downstream. Understanding the core causes of these climate shifts requires a look at larger climatic trends. In 2023, the global temperature rose 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the late 19th-century average, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. “The exceptional warming that we’re experiencing is not something we’ve seen before in human history,” Director of the Goddard Institute for Space
Studies Gavin Schmidt said. “It’s driven primarily by our fossil fuel emissions, and we’re seeing the impacts in heat waves, intense rainfall and coastal flooding.” “Studies also have linked a warming Arctic with more severe winter weather in the United States, even though other reports note that on average, winter cold snaps are actually getting warmer because of climate change,” National Geographic said. Human activities, such as deforestation and urbanization, have only aided in altering the natural landscape. This can affect local climates and contribute to extreme weather events, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. “Climate changes, including more frequent and intense storms and more extreme flooding events, can increase stormwater runoff. An increase in stormwater runoff can exac-
erbate existing, or introduce new, pollution problems,” the EPA said. The Metro East and St. Louis areas are particularly vulnerable to flooding from the Mississippi River. The region’s geography, with low-lying areas and aging levee systems, makes it susceptible to high water levels, according to the St. Louis District US Army Corps of Engineers. Floodwaters can cause significant damage to roads, bridges and buildings. In the Metro East, key transportation routes could be disrupted, affecting both river commercial travel and roadway commerce. The St. Louis area, with its historic neighborhoods and commercial centers, also faces the risk of extensive damage. Cities such as Alton are see FLOODING on page 2
Organization’s commitment to education makes a difference in communities abroad CAMELA SHARP reporter SIUE offers a nonprofit sub-club organization called the Mustard Seed Peace Project, where founder Teresa Cranmer and students are in their efforts to make a difference for less fortunate communities. Cranmer, the current president of the nonprofit side of the Mustard Seed Peace Project, said the Mustard Seed Peace Project does work that is mostly based in Guatemala and Zambia. Their organization has built classrooms and latrines, drilled water wells, fostered school lunch programs and much more. Cranmer said that as of now, their goals are more centered around securing the educational systems in places. “[We like to ask ourselves] how we can help these students, and how we can enhance their educational experience,” Cranmer said. “Not that we’ve put [our other projects] aside, but our main focus is the educational aspect. We’ve been doing some educational workshops for the teachers of these communities [as well].” SIUE Clinic Nurse Miranda Sellars is vice president of the nonprofit side of the Mustard Seed Peace Project and chair of the Fundraising Committee. Though the original organization and
the student subgroup don’t often get the chance to collaborate, they stay connected through Sellars. Sellars said that one of their big goals involves the teaching workshops they will be providing and being as helpful as possible without being overbearing. “We always make sure that we are invited into the communities, and we’re not just going in and changing things that they might not feel need to be changed. They do a wonderful job of asking whenever they do need help,” Sellars said. Sellars said getting better internet connection to these communities will be extremely helpful for them as they work on creating a better education system for the schools. “One goal with implementing these projects is getting Wi-Fi to those communities,” Sellars said. “It’s easy for us to get Wi-Fi here in America, and especially here in the Midwest. A lot of those communities do not have Wi-Fi, and unfortunately, a lot of these workshops require some type of internet access or Wi-Fi in general.” Cranmer had the idea for the club in 2004 after a trip to Guatemala. After her first visit, she became passionate about the country and the culture. As she continued to visit, she began to ask the people residing more questions about their community. “I sat with them and asked them, ‘If
money were no object, what would be your most urgent need?’ They said ‘better health for their children’ and ‘better education for their children.’ So, I took those two things and began developing [the Mustard Seed Peace Project].” Sophomore electrical engineering major Marissa Grix was secretary of the student Mustard Seed Peace Project last year and hopes to run for vice president this upcoming year. Grix said that the student organization is also focusing on improving the education system for communities in Guatemala by creating educational games, planning equipment drives for sports equipment and school equipment and planning fundraisers to send students to Guatemala. Cranmer said that the change to focusing on education is very different from what she’s focused on in the last 20 years of her work, but she’s taking the challenge head-on. “This is a big, huge shift from what I’ve been doing for 20 years. I’m learning again as I go and it’s fun, exciting and it’s also a little bit scary. But that’s also the exciting part.
Cranmer said they are striving to bring communities together to support the ones that need it the most. “Our focus is to empower the communities that we work with as well as to develop cross-cultural sharing by bringing groups or people from the United States down to assist and to meet with the people that we work with,” Cranmer said. Women empowerment is an important topic the project would like to focus on. “One of our goals is to make sure that [the communities] feel as empowered as they can be — especially the women — as they sometimes don’t have the ability to start the businesses they’d like to,” Sellars said. “I saw the sustainable impact [the project] was having on very small communities in Guatemala,” Sellars said. “I really was drawn to the clean water initiatives that they have promoted, and as a nursing student who was very interested in public health, I loved the idea of being able to help communities in that way.”