The Ten Plagues That Are Hitting America Right Now

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The American Dream blog,

Why are so many plagues hitting the United States all of a sudden?  Yes, one can always point out bad stuff that is happening somewhere in the country, but right now we are facing a nightmarish combination of crippling drought, devastating wildfires, disastrous viruses, dying crops and superbugs that scientists don’t know how to kill.  And as you will see, we even have a plague of flies down in Mississippi.  So what in the world is going on?

The following are ten plagues that are hitting America right now…

#1 The Plague Of Flies In The Upper Mississippi River Valley

This is perhaps the least dangerous plague, but it is also one of the most interesting.  Just recently, a plague of flies was so thick in the upper Mississippi River valley that it showed up on radar

The mayflies were detectable on radar around 845 pm and reports in the towns and cities began rolling in of the swarming and piles of mayflies. Numerous videos and pictures were circulating on social media, some of which are posted below as well.

 

The radar detected the flies about 845 pm, emanating from the river (the source) with echo values similar to that of light-moderate rain (35-40 dBZ). With a general south-to-north wind flow above the surface, the mayflies quickly moved north once in the air. As the flies dispersed moving north-northeast, they also gained altitude with some of the echo being detected as far north as Black River Falls and as high as 2500 feet above ground.

 

By late evening, mayflies were swarming in La Crosse, La Crescent, Stoddard and points up and down the river. While the emergence of mayflies from their river bottom mud dwelling can occur at various times through the warm season depending on the species, this particular emergence was that of the larger black/brown Bilineata species.

Here is one photo of the flies that was posted by the federal government…

Plague Of Flies In Mississippi - Government Photo Public Domain

#2 The Chikungunya Virus

As I wrote about the other day, down in Florida health officials have discovered the very first confirmed cases of the chikungunya virus to be transmitted locally.  In other words, it is now being passed to people that have not even traveled out of the country.

An epidemic of the virus has already been declared down in Puerto Rico, and authorities are deeply concerned about the possibility of one up here as well.

Already, cases of the virus have been reported in 30 different states and the total number of cases in the U.S. is more than five times higher than in any other recent year.

If you live in an area that has a lot of mosquitos, you might want to be very, very careful right about now because this is a virus that is exceedingly painful

With illness onset, the person develops high fever, chills, and joint pain, followed in some by a rash on the trunk, limbs and face lasting 3-4 days. Muscle and joint pain last about one week. Joint pain is often severe and in some people lasts longer, up to several months.

#3 The Wildfires Out West

The massive wildfires in Washington, Oregon and western Canada have spread clouds of smoke over vast areas of the northwest United States in recent days.  The following excerpt comes from a recent CNN report

Wildfires spanning almost 170,000 acres are driving hundreds of people from their homes in Washington state and across the border in Canada, officials said.

 

Washington authorities say the fires surged overnight to 168,713 acres in the state. The flames have encroached on towns.

 

Janet Pearce of the Washington state Department of Natural Resources said the four fires had not been contained as of Friday morning. An estimated 80 homes were destroyed and cell phone service was knocked out.

#4 The Drought In California

The nightmarish multi-year drought in the state of California just continues to get even worse.

This week it was reported that 81 percent of California is now experiencing “extreme drought” or worse.

Three months ago, that number was just 68 percent.

And we are being told that downtown Los Angeles is now the driest that it has been since rain records began in 1877.

For much, much more on this, please see my recent article entitled “20 Signs The Epic Drought In The Western United States Is Starting To Become Apocalyptic“.

#5 The Virus That Has Killed Millions Of Our Pigs

A horrific pig virus known as porcine epidemic diarrhea came over from China a little over a year ago.

Since then, it has killed about 7 million pigs, and approximately 100,000 more are dying each week.

#6 Citrus Greening

Have you ever heard of citrus greening disease?

Perhaps not, but it has gotten so bad down in Florida that experts are now saying that the entire citrus industry in the state “could be destroyed”

“It’s horrible — it’s a disaster,” says Fred Gmitter, a professor of horticulture science at the University of Florida Citrus Research and Education Center.

 

It might be time to kiss your OJ goodbye, unless science steps in to save the day.

 

At least 70% of Florida’s citrus trees are already infected by the disease, known as citrus greening, huanglongbing, or occasionally just with an ominous “it,” as in “It’s here.”

 

Florida’s citrus crop this year is the lowest it’s been in 30 years, and agricultural authorities have continued to lower their production estimates. Orange-juice prices are up nearly 20% this year alone and will continue to rise. The disease was a major factor in the lime shortage that made the price of a box of Persian limes jump from $18 to $85 last December. Prices could jump higher for oranges. Researchers and growers say that if a cure isn’t found, the entire $9 billion Florida citrus industry could be destroyed.

#7 Bananas Going Extinct?

You bananas are not safe either.

According to CNBC, the TR4 fungus is spreading so rapidly that it could eventually totally wipe out the variety of bananas that we find in our grocery stores today…

Banana lovers take note: The world’s supply of the fruit is under attack from a fungus strain that could wipe out the popular variety that Americans eat.

 

“It’s a very serious situation,” said Randy Ploetz, a professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida who in 1989 originally discovered a strain of Panama disease, called TR4, that may be growing into a serious threat to U.S. supplies of the fruit and Latin American producers.

 

“There’s nothing at this point that really keeps the fungus from spreading,” he said in an interview with CNBC.

 

While there are nearly 1,000 varieties of bananas, the most popular is the Cavendish, which accounts for 45 percent of the fruit’s global crop—and the one Americans mostly find in their supermarkets.

#8 The Number Of Earthquakes Is Increasing

For a long time, scientists tried to deny that the number of earthquakes is increasing.

But now, the USGS is finally admitting that the number of big earthquakes has doubled

If you think there have been more earthquakes than usual this year, you’re right. A new study finds there were more than twice as many big earthquakes in the first quarter of 2014 as compared with the average since 1979.

 

“We have recently experienced a period that has had one of the highest rates of great earthquakes ever recorded,” said lead study author Tom Parsons, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Menlo Park, California.

Fortunately, most of the earthquakes in the U.S. so far this year have been relatively small or have been in isolated areas.

But they have been popping up in very unusual areas (such as Oklahoma), and as seismic activity along the Ring of Fire continues to increase, it is probably only a matter of time before one of our major cities gets hit with a major tragedy.

#9 Superbugs

Thanks at least in part to the massive overuse of antibiotics, a new generation of superbugs is arising.  Scientists have no way to kill these superbugs, and according to experts they are finding their way “into healthcare facilities nationwide”

Drug-resistant superbug infections have reached near-epidemic levels across U.S. hospitals, with an alarming 500% increase now documented in a study just published in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology (the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America).

 

Lead author of the study, Dr. Joshua Thaden, warned “This dangerous bacteria is finding its way into healthcare facilities nationwide… A CRE epidemic is fast approaching… Even this marked increase likely underestimates the true scope of the problem given variations in hospital surveillance practices.”

 

The study also found that an astonishing 94 percent of CRE infections were caused by healthcare activities or hospital procedures.

#10 Fukushima

The Fukushima nuclear disaster is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Hundreds of tons of radioactive water are being released into the Pacific on a continual basis, and this could potentially affect our oceans and our food chain for generations to come.

But it is a “slow motion disaster” that is already “old news”, so most Americans don’t think about it anymore.  But the truth is that there is a lot of evidence that it should be taken very seriously in this country.  For much more on this, please see this article.

In Japan, of course, things are even worse.

In fact, one Japanese doctor that was working in Tokyo says that radiation sickness is rampant in that city

Since December 2011, I have conducted thyroid ultrasound examinations, thyroid function tests, general blood tests and biochemical tests on about 2000 people, mostly families in the Tokyo metropolitan area expressing concerns on the effects of radiation. I have observed that white blood cells, especially neutrophils, are decreasing among children under the age of 10. There are cases of significant decline in the number of neutrophils in 0-1 year-olds born after the earthquake (<1000). In both cases, conditions tend to improve by moving to Western Japan (Neutrophils 0–>4500). Patients report nosebleed, hair loss, lack of energy, subcutaneous bleeding, visible urinary hemorrhage, skin inflammations, coughs and various other non-specific symptoms.

And this Japanese doctor believes that things are so dire that he says that the entire city of Tokyo should be evacuated…

Residents of Tokyo are unfortunately not in the position to pity the affected regions of Tohoku because they are victims themselves. Time is running short. I took an earlier step forward and evacuated to the west. My fellow doctors of medicine, I am waiting for you here. And to the people in Eastern Japan still hesitating, all my support goes to facilitating and enabling your evacuation, relocation, or a temporary relief in Western Japan.

Just like with Chernobyl, this radioactive material is going to silently make people sick and kill people all over globe for years to come, and most of them will never have any idea what is really happening to them.

*  *  *

But apart from that all that… things are great.

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Mike Moskos

Do you notice most of these are consequences of industrial agriculture?

IndenturedServant

A week ago the smoke was so bad in my neighborhood I could see waves of it wafting between houses and down the streets. I could even taste it so I thought we had a local fire that had came to life while I was sleeping. Turns out the wind had shifted and it came from over 100 miles away! The fires are largely a man-made problem resulting from mismanagement of the forests. If you like wild mushrooms there is nothing like the mushroom picking that goes on in the burned areas the first year after a fire. The wildflower blooms are epic in the burned out areas as well. Did you know that a couple species of orchid grow in recently burned areas? They may only grow for a few years before the trees take over again and the orchids have to wait hundreds or even a thousand years to be seen again in that area. Same goes for many of the wildflowers.

Some weird goings on I’ve noticed are that some of the deciduous trees are turning color and dropping leaves. My neighbors burning bushes have turned red already. Looks like fall. Very odd. Maybe it’s the radiation from Fukishima!

It’s funny……..before hoomans that “plague” of mayflies would have been considered a magnificent feast for everything from birds to bears to fish. Now it’s a plague!

Most of the shit on this list is the result of hoomans trying to sustain the unsustainable. Bring on the disease and pestilence! It’s better than dying at the hand of your government!

Gin
Gin

“some of the deciduous trees are turning color and dropping leaves”

They do that in autumn. Also do it when there hasn’t been enough rain.

Stucky

“You bananas are not safe either.” —————- from the article

What?? My banana?? Unsafe?? This is a really shitty day.

ZD2015
ZD2015

No doubt the religious devotees (nut jobs) will see every single one as a “sign” of their beliefs, despite not a single prophecy having come true in 2000 years..
Can’t colonise other worlds fast enough…

card802
card802

I read that NASA knows that the earths magnetic poles have shifted many times in the past and are presently slowly shifting now. The same with the sun, but it’s shift happens faster than the earths.
As a private pilot we had fun in Michigan when the FAA had to change the airport runway numbers one degree a few years ago because of the shift.
These shifts have dramatic effects of global climate change and earthquakes.

As far as bugs maybe they’re on a certain fuck schedule, fuckushima, we’re fucked.

Thinker

I_S, your story about the smoke reminded me of living in Singapore while there were wildfires throughout all of Indonesia. The “Haze” was so thick you could barely breathe. And that was hundreds of miles away.

Regarding the trees — same thing is happening here. I mentioned last week that some shrubs that turn red in the fall are already coloring up. So are the hardwood trees. Farmers are saying their crops are shutting down early, too. The old-timers are insisting that it’s a sign that the coming winter will be earlier and harsher than last year. If that’s possible… we’re preparing for it just in case.

Pirate Jo
Pirate Jo

Too many people.

MuckAbout

I agree with PJ (as almost always!).. Too many rats in the box – far beyond the capability of the limited arable land to feed.

Down here in Central Florida, things in the garden start suffering by the first week of August. I plant a pepper called Cubanelle in Spring that usually bears delightful tasty green peppers through August. This year, my Cubanelles all quit developing fruit by the end of June and have already died – way too early..

There will be far more aberrations from the “norm” as time goes by due to self inflicted damage to our environment. We will be living in a new nature punctuated with many more anomalies, shifting of extremes, migrating pests, people and such as time passes. It’s happening too much in “slow motion” for the general public to notice more than in passing until the costs of survival from these diverging “norms” exceed our ability to pay for them.

Then TSHTF and it will be irregular and spotty at first with the poorest countries taking the worst hit but by in by it’ll eat us all.

MA

GilbertS
GilbertS

Mike’s right-monoculture means one bug can kill all yer’ crops.

GilbertS
GilbertS

The banana thing is well-known, or should be by now, and it is the result of monoculture. There are scores of species of bananas, but our favorite, and really the only one available in most stores, is the Cavendish, which was a replacement for our previous favorite, which was also killed after a fungus wiped it out. Monoculture is fun, til’ it’s not.

GilbertS
GilbertS

Hey, Card-I thought the magnetic poles were constantly shifting, anyhow. I’ve taken navigation training at various times from various sources over the years and they always stressed the difference between True North and Magnetic North. The charts I used always had the… lemme see, was it Magnetic Declination? listed on them. I was surprised to learn you could have wild swings from year to year.
A real pole shift is a scary thought if Emmanuelle Velikovsky was correct. He believed there had been pole shifts within recorded history and they had wreaked unspeakable havoc on the Earth. Based on what he wrote, I figure you might as well dig a hole, jump in, and pull it in on top of you.

IndenturedServant

Gin, I’ve seen trees drop leaves due to lack of water but I don’t think that is the case here. The majority of trees on the same boulevard are lush and green. Our city is dense with trees and the affected trees seem to be randomly situated. I seem to recall this happened before but I cannot recall the circumstances.

IndenturedServant

Muck, tell me more about those peppers. I have a great little pepper called Padron. I harvest them green when I get enough to fill up a skillet. I get the skillet scalding hot, throw in the peppers, drizzle with olive oil and sea salt then cover with a splatter shield and shake the skillet often as the peppers blister. Once they look evenly blistered take them off the heat and eat them whole except the stem. A nice cold beer and some crusty bread makes it a meal. The neat thing is that about every 8th-10th peppers will be fiery hot while the rest of them are very mild. There is no way to tell which ones are hot. It’s like a delicious version of russian roulette!

AWD

Another omen…..

River In China Mysteriously Turns Bloody Red Overnight

Jul 25, 2014, 1:09 PM ET
By YAZHOU SUN

A waterway in eastern China has mysteriously turned a blood red color.

Residents in Zhejiang province said the river looked normal at 5 a.m. Beijing time on Thursday morning. Within an hour, the entire river turned crimson. Residents also said a strange smell wafted through the air.

“The really weird thing is that we have been able to catch fish because the water is normally so clear,” one local villager commented on China’s microblogging site Weibo.

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Persnickety
Persnickety

If you need more depressing reading, here’s someone who thinks all trees are dying from ground-level ozone pollution:

http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/

It’s interesting reading. We sure have a lot of dead trees around here, but I have no idea what normal was 20, 50 or 100 years ago.

Pirate Jo
Pirate Jo

I agree, Muck. I think those folks over at ‘Nature Bats Last’ might be on to something. It might be too late by now for us to fix anything. Yet when I look outside I see dumbshits pushing babies around in strollers.

Don’t have kids.

IndenturedServant

Card802, the Earths magnetic poles “wander” over time. There are maps that plot this wandering of the magnetic poles. Not only do the magnetic poles wander but our geographic poles “appear” to wander as well. I have a precision German equatorial mount for my telescopes and it has a graduated reticule in the small polar alignment scope that is broken down by year to account for the apparent celestial wandering of our geometric pole. Over thousands of years the Earth wobbles sort of like a kids top and traces out a circle in the sky. The current north star Polaris is not always the north star.

A magnetic pole or field shift is an entirely different animal. A pole shift is when N & S actually reverse. Magnetic pole shifts have happened thousands of times and are well documented in lava fields around the Earth. The mid oceanic ridges are excellent places to study these shifts. There are lava deposits in Oregon that will show these shifts if you bring a compass in close proximity to them.

I’d bet money that a magnetic pole shift is not that big a deal for life on Earth since it has happened so frequently in the past and life has merrily continued. I do wonder if it screws up the migration patterns of birds, fish and mammals since current theory suggests that these creatures use magnetic fields to navigate. I suspect the theories may be flawed or incomplete. It may play hell with some of our technology though.

Persnickety
Persnickety

“I’d bet money that a magnetic pole shift is not that big a deal for life on Earth”

Problem is that pole shifts seem to be associated with extremely weak magnetic fields for 100’s to 1000’s of years before and after the switch, and weak magnetic fields mean weak Van Allen Belts which means a lot more radiation reaching the surface of the earth. There has been some speculation that these episodes of radiation may drive evolution somewhat by increasing mutations on a temporary basis. It’s not likely to be good for us though. Obviously life does survive the shifts – I’m not aware of any link between extinctions and polar shifts.

KaD
KaD

11) Obamacare
12) offshoring of jobs
13)career politicians

Eddie
Eddie

14) Widespread apathy
15) Nanny state
16) Most citizens are willing police informants
17) Men don’t protect and support their children
18)Spiraling taxation

Chikungunya, big deal. I got DEET.

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