The Clean Up Process
So, I’m not normally one for over dramatics. I’m not normally one charging the front lines of some hidden agenda, or internalizing a great tragedy because I feel somehow more personally affected by it than others. But over the last few days we’ve seen some pretty crazy destruction all around us and a lot of folks have been drastically affected and today I finally was able to get involved.
Yesterday I was riding in a car with a guy who lived in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. He said that his house took in just over five feet of water and everything was ruined. He told me that it wasn’t the storm or the water that was the worst part, but when the water started to go down. When he was able to see the damage. Able to see just how bad it was. ”That’s the moment that really messes people up”, he said. ”That’s when people need help the most. That’s when they need to be cared for.”
Today I was in three different condos that had taken in about five feet of water themselves. Everything was ruined. TV’s, couches, books, photos. Everything. Today when I got home I looked around my house and imagined losing everything below a five foot line. This is what these people are going through.
And the sad part to me is that most of us would rather complain about the lack of national news coverage. We’d rather sit in our dry living room with our feet up watching CNN and saying, ‘They should be talking about the floods on here.’ Honestly I’ve seen more complaining about the news coverage than I’ve seen actual helping, and that’s sad to me. So goodie, Anderson Cooper was here today. He walked around, shook some hands and told people this place was a mess. Is that going to change tomorrow? Next week? Next month? Not if people don’t stop watching and complaining about CNN and go outside and do something for the folks who have lost everything below five feet.
Maybe I’m just complaining about the complainers, but I just think that sometimes people in their comfy suburbs desperately seek out drama and over internalize things because they are bored. They are bored with their lives and need to be a victim of something. And if the flood didn’t get you, you’ve got to be a victim of the media. I say, throw on some boots, grab some gloves and go move some furniture, because where I was today, there’s a lot of that still needing to be done.
Rain, Rain On My Face
I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a sucker for extreme weather. When we had that weird ice storm thing Blue and I were out most of the day walking around and then we took a drive sliding all over the place. This crazy rain, flooding thing is no exception either. After two days of hearing about the craziness I had to get out and see for myself just how bad it was. Turns out, the news and weather reports were right. Floods everywhere.
It took us about an hour to figure out a way to the store that wasn’t completely flooded. And we only had to go through one pretty serious deep part. I was waiting for the car to shut off, but it never did. At one point I went back and picked up Kristin and the boys so they could come with me and we could make it a ‘family adventure’. We actually ended up passing two or three other grocery stores to get to the one I wanted to go to. We win this one.
Seriously though. My heart goes out to the tons of people affected by this mess. We happen to be some of the fortunate ones that have a house on a slight hill. There are several houses that we even drove past today that aren’t as fortunate.
I’ve heard all sorts of “statistics” today, but I don’t know if any of them are true. Most rain in a hundred years, National Guard is posted, buildings are falling over, official ‘State of Emergency’, dusk to dawn curfew, ect. All pretty believable after taking a little drive around, but we don’t have local TV so we’re basically going off of Twitter and the interweb.
So what’s up Nashville, everyone okay?
