Tuesday, August 29, 2017

A flood of disasters

I have survived the Photocopypocalypse, the e-mail server Snafu-A-Rama, and, yesterday, the onslaught of Austins. (Three Austins in one class? How will I ever tell them apart?) But despite this thrilling demonstration of personal resilience, this morning I was nearly flattened by the morning news.

I blame first-week-of-class jitters: I haven't been able to sleep past 4 a.m. for days, so I'm a little emotionally fragile. When stories of suffering and struggle from Houston came on the morning news, I felt the tears welling up unbidden, which was not a great thing since I was trying to drive down a busy highway at the time.

I heard the story about the furniture-store owner in Houston who opened his doors to flood victims and sent out delivery trucks to rescue stranded residents and deliver them to the store, where he's hosting what he called a "slumber party on steroids" (click here). I was reminded of the time my family hunkered down in a house surrounded by water during the floods that followed Hurricane Agnes in 1972--great fun for us kids who were allowed to camp out in sleeping bags on the living-room floor, but not so great for those whose homes, cars, or lives were washed away.

Yesterday the price of gas increased by 20 cents per gallon here, but if that's the limit of Harvey's local reach, I think we'll survive. However, as soon as I arrived at the office, I went online and made a donation to aid relief efforts, because no matter how far we are from today's disaster, we may find ourselves in the middle of tomorrow's. And besides, donations are always more effective than tears.

(If you're interested, the New York Times offers links to relief organizations and to a site that will help you avoid scams: click here.)  

No comments: