时间:2019-01-14 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2011年(六月)


英语课

Heavy Rains Bring Raging Floods - and a Debate


This spring, so-called "100-year floods" swamped many communities along the Mississippi River, America's largest commercial waterway.

The flooding was so severe that the U.S. Corps 1 of Engineers, which supervises national flood-control efforts, took the nearly unprecedented 2 step of opening giant floodgates to keep high water from reaching Baton 3 Rouge 4, the capital city of Louisiana, and the major port of New Orleans.

The result was the deliberate flooding of millions of hectares of rural areas and small settlements in Louisiana's already swampy 5 "bayou country."

Whether to hold back the river or let it flood is a longstanding issue on the Mississippi - one that crystallizes each spring in the city of Davenport, Iowa.

Over the past decade, floodwaters reached near-record levels there three times. Each time this happened, photos showed the city's baseball stadium nearly submerged, giving the impression that much of Davenport was under water.

Parts of it are submerged during floods, but it's by design. The city has chosen not to build floodwalls, instead, turning the lowest-lying parts in town into floodable parkland. It provides sandbags to the few residential 6 and business areas that take on some water during severe flooding.

It also moves a dozen or so homes out of the floodplain each year, and requires new homes built there to be elevated.

Critics say that floodwalls and levees could prevent the flooding altogether. But officials say dikes upstream from the city already act like a sluice 7, causing the river to flow even faster, deeper, and more dangerously through their town.

If they built levees, Davenporters say, smaller communities below would have to do the same - and so on, all the way down the river.

No thank you. So Davenport takes its floods in stride and lets the mighty 8 river do what rivers do from time to time.



n.(通信等兵种的)部队;(同类作的)一组
  • The medical corps were cited for bravery in combat.医疗队由于在战场上的英勇表现而受嘉奖。
  • When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时,他自愿参加了海军陆战队。
adj.无前例的,新奇的
  • The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
  • A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。
n.乐队用指挥杖
  • With the baton the conductor was beating time.乐队指挥用指挥棒打拍子。
  • The conductor waved his baton,and the band started up.指挥挥动指挥棒,乐队开始演奏起来。
n.胭脂,口红唇膏;v.(在…上)擦口红
  • Women put rouge on their cheeks to make their faces pretty.女人往面颊上涂胭脂,使脸更漂亮。
  • She didn't need any powder or lip rouge to make her pretty.她天生漂亮,不需要任何脂粉唇膏打扮自己。
adj.沼泽的,湿地的
  • Malaria is still rampant in some swampy regions.疟疾在一些沼泽地区仍很猖獗。
  • An ox as grazing in a swampy meadow.一头牛在一块泥泞的草地上吃草。
adj.提供住宿的;居住的;住宅的
  • The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
  • The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。
n.水闸
  • We opened the sluice and the water poured in.我们打开闸门,水就涌了进来。
  • They regulate the flow of water by the sluice gate.他们用水闸门控制水的流量。
adj.强有力的;巨大的
  • A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
  • The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。
学英语单词
accelerator electrode
aello
air speed indicator
alkalisation
anamorphic distortion
Asvins
be ridden by fears
blattic acid
board of inquiry
chalcophyllite
chetta
Cliffonoy
cormidium (pl. -dia)
corneus point
corpus adiposum pararenale
covariates
cowhide leather
cum calce soda
data balancing
Diplococcus siccus
discharge avalanche
disliken
Driscoll
earth's spheroid
effective steam pressure
eight across a road
electromagnetic-wave
error checking
ethylmorphine-n-demethylase
extirpating
extrovertist
eyewitness reporting
fawnguest
Feenagh
First Baron Lytton
folkred
fruiting branch
giraffe
globate glands
Globenicol
glutaconaldehyde
Hydrochlore
initial database
Intercompany transaction
inversion constant
Iometin(125I)
kephal-
Kosyakinskaya
land-grab
Languedoc-Roussillon
man-shift rate
maners
mean squares error
Mosla scabra
mountain quail
mucor lamprosporus
Neomartinella
neostriatal
nerve reflex regulation
netting
Network-Attached Storage
neurocrine
neutral hapten
neutron-proton diffu-sion
Nipponophobia
North India
oligomictic conglomerate
pectinogen
perfluoro-
periplasm
phase lead network
pin-head
plankton pulse
plurisignifies
pyramid hardness test
Q'AT
quartz battery
removing solid capacity
reoxidize
Roebling, John Augustus
routine calls
sarcoplasmic-reticulum
saunter
schriesheimite
select color
self-celebration
servo follower
set at defiance
sign bit acquisition system
speed decreasing mechanism
spring high water
the material self
Theovent
trash guard
turow
unsmoothed curve
up hill and down dale
upside downward
vinyl-ethyl alcohol
whispered bronchophony
yearningly