Hurricane Harvey

Like everyone else I know, I spent the last week riveted to the the stream of pictures and stories streaming out of Texas in the wake of the hurricane.

I felt - awe, sorrow, horror, gratitude.

The storm escalated so quickly - from a something-in-the-Gulf on Wednesday to it's-a-category-4-hurricane-coming-straight-to-Texas! on Friday night. My mind worked to grasp the sense of a storm system large enough to cover much of the Gulf of Mexico. I listened with dread to the predictions of 40-50 inches of rain. I studied the beauty of the swirling clouds in awe - how can anything so destructive be so majestic?

I empathized with the Houston mayor who asked people not to evacuate - the numbers were hard, but I think he made the right call - homes are safer than cars in a major event like this, and there is no way for five million people to leave town safely under most any circumstance, let alone with the threat of flooding at their heels. One overheated, broken-down car would have endangered thousands of lives.

I tried to imagine myself watching the waters rise up to my home, feeling wrenching tears as I mentally cataloged what I could safely get above the flood in time. Feeling watcher's guilt as I knew that level of flooding is highly unlikely to hit me personally.

I found myself angry at the climate change deniers and those who built in flood plains despite warnings from scientists and engineers. I'm guessing those who did the building were not the same people doing the watching as all they owned was destroyed. Just because you don't want it to be true, just because you ignore the facts, just because you choose to be ignorant; these things don't mean Nature will pay you a bit of attention or alter her implacable step.  You idiots! (speaking to those builders)

I felt hope and gratitude. The Cajun Army rode in to the rescue when official forces weren't able to get there in time. Ordinary people who felt a call to help, and unblinkingly answered the call, risking their property and their lives to rescue people and pets, to deliver supplies.

The storm passed, as storms always do, and I felt inadequate. How can one help? I will send some money to the Houston food bank. It will ensure at least one person won't go hungry for a few days. And I know many people are doing the same, but in the face of the massive destruction, can it help?

Yes, it can. Money won't fix the problems, but together, it can help to ease them. Troubles are more easily borne if one's stomach is not screaming for sustenance.

and maybe, just maybe, this will be a wake-up call to the powers that be. It's too late to do what should have been done twelve years ago after Katrina drowned New Orleans, or after Sandy decimated the east coast in 2012.  We can't change the past, but it's not too late to do what we can do today to get ready for the next storm - because it will come.

Climate change is real, and it is here.