Elephant Butte Lake State Park, Elephant Butte NM

Camped at Site 31, South Monticello Point, Elephant Butte Lake State Park, Elephant Butte NM, March 30, 2009

Elephant Butte Lake State Park is located on the shore of New Mexico's largest lake a few miles north of Truth or Consequences NM.

The Elephant Butte Lake State Park website says:

The largest and most popular lake in New Mexico, Elephant Butte Lake State Park provides a setting for every imaginable water sport. The visitor center offers regional interpretive exhibits. The mild climate of the area makes this park a popular year-round destination.

Elephant Butte Reservoir, created by a dam constructed in 1916 across the Rio Grande, is 40 miles long with more than 200 miles of shoreline. Although constructed to provide for irrigation and flood control, the lake is New Mexico’s premier water recreation facility. A wide variety of water sports are available at the lake, with fishing being one of the most popular. The mild climate of the area makes this park a popular year-round destination.

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Verizon EVDO service - very good
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Nights I've camped here

Disaster and the Failure of Authority

Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.

The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005

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