"Scorpion Flood" In Egypt Should Have You Thankful For Your Bad Weather

Weather worse than ours: A flood in Egypt unleashed a 
plague of venomous scorpions, and more than 500 
people were stung. All survived, but still.

 Many of us don't like November weather here in Vermont.

It's usually dreary, damp and cold. We have a brief window daily of semi light under cloudy skies after a late sunrise and before an early sunset. 

The weather could throw anything at us this time of year.

Compared to some areas, though, we should thank our lucky stars that our biggest weather problem at the moment is November gloom.

Let's take Aswan, Egypt as one great example. Recently, they had a destructive flood, which is bad enough. What's worse, the flood carried a whole bunch of scorpions through the streets and into homes.

Aswan averages just 0.12 inches of rain a year. That's a sprinkle to us. It's super, super dry there.

So when a torrential thunderstorm drenched Aswan recently, residents were shocked. It resulted in a terrible flood, and three people lost their lives. But that was only the start of Aswan's problems. 

Let's let the Washington Post pick up the story from here:

"The rains also unleashed something especially sinister: hordes of highly venomous scorpions whose stings hospitalized 503 people, according to Ehab Hanafy, undersecretary of the Health Ministry of Aswan. 

Aswan Gov. Ahsraf Attia told the AP that those stung and hospitalized were given anti-venom does and released.  Al-Ahram, a government-run Egyptian newspaper, reported that doctors were called back from vacation to assist with the treatments."

It was initially reported that the three deaths were due to scorpion stings, but that turned out not to be true. They died in the actual flooding.  

Although everyone survived the scorpion stings in this instance, none of the victims exactly had fun with the experience.

Reports Al Jazeera: 

"People who were stung by the scorpions said their symptoms included severe pain, fever, sweating, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle tremors and head twitching."

The scorpion danger still exists in and around Aswan after the flooding. Al Jazeera says the Egyptian Ministry of Health has stockpiled 3,350 doses of anti-venom in Aswan, just in case. 

The variety of scorpion native to Egypt and other areas of the Middle East and Africa are among the deadliest in the world. They tend to hide under rocks, crevices, rocks, and even inside homes during the usual hot weather. Even the scorpions hiding in homes more often than not don't bother anybody, because they are well, hiding. 

The flooding flushed the scorpions out from their hiding places, where they stung people on streets, in cars, in homes, whichever place was affected by the flooding. 

The scorpion attack was a rare event because heavy rain is a rare event. However, when it does rain in Aswan, it can come down hard. They might go a few years without any appreciable precipitation and then - WHAM! They get a Vermont-style, torrential humid summer thunderstorm or worse.

The soil, and the infrastructure around Aswan can't handle these big storms. So there's floods. And scorpions. 

And you complained about slipping on your frosty, ice covered front steps this morning?

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