Friday, September 02, 2005
While it's true we've been complaining about something as trivial as the yard when everyone in New Orleans is either dead, fleeing, or "just" homeless and displaced, we are actually mindful of what's happening.
It's hard, in an age of such prevalent and immediate media, to see that and not think, From so far away, what can you do? I sent some money to the Red Cross (who I hear shops in bulk and can make the best use of it), and we will pray for them -- and count our own blessings. But if all we can do from here is to witness, then we will.
Last night I lay awake, wondering how we would have prepared, either with the days of warning they had on the Gulf coast or, worse, on a moment's notice. Sure, a hurricane's storm surge is unlikely to get water as high as our street, but it does bear thinking about. Would we gather diapers & milk? Pack up some clothes? Try to get cash money? Eventually we would miss the scrapbooks that document our lives since marriage, but would we resent carrying them along? How about videotapes?
Should I prepare a box of stuff in the event of a disaster, or would that just scare The Mrs. unnecessarily? Do we need bottled water in the basement? A can of gas in the garage? I got the brochure on emergency preparedness put out by FEMA or Homeland Security or whoever last year, but reading it depressed me. *sigh* Thank God I don't live below sea level. Which reminds me...
*clickety-click* The Weather Underground site lists us at 326 feet above sea level. I live halfway down a hillside, with another neighborhood much farther below us: it would take quite a lot of water to push us up on the roof.
Anyway, God bless those people, and go, Red Cross, go!
It's hard, in an age of such prevalent and immediate media, to see that and not think, From so far away, what can you do? I sent some money to the Red Cross (who I hear shops in bulk and can make the best use of it), and we will pray for them -- and count our own blessings. But if all we can do from here is to witness, then we will.
Last night I lay awake, wondering how we would have prepared, either with the days of warning they had on the Gulf coast or, worse, on a moment's notice. Sure, a hurricane's storm surge is unlikely to get water as high as our street, but it does bear thinking about. Would we gather diapers & milk? Pack up some clothes? Try to get cash money? Eventually we would miss the scrapbooks that document our lives since marriage, but would we resent carrying them along? How about videotapes?
Should I prepare a box of stuff in the event of a disaster, or would that just scare The Mrs. unnecessarily? Do we need bottled water in the basement? A can of gas in the garage? I got the brochure on emergency preparedness put out by FEMA or Homeland Security or whoever last year, but reading it depressed me. *sigh* Thank God I don't live below sea level. Which reminds me...
*clickety-click* The Weather Underground site lists us at 326 feet above sea level. I live halfway down a hillside, with another neighborhood much farther below us: it would take quite a lot of water to push us up on the roof.
Anyway, God bless those people, and go, Red Cross, go!
