A post-hurricane miracle for my little niece...

M

mtngunr

Joined
Apr 10, 2005
Messages
1,072
mom, sis, and 8yr old niece have been without power since the storm, cleaning around their battered houses minus siding and chimneys, a giant tree on top of sis's house, several more down in the yard proper (and even more on the rest of the farm), running very few errands on gasoline limited to 1 gal per purchase, no ice to be had anywhere...that day, little Kallie Rose was looking intently to the sky and when asked what she was doing, replied she was praying real hard for a miracle, but what, she didn't know and could they go for a drive...sweaty and dirty from the work, all three took a huge luxury break to drive around a bit and amazingly found a small Mexican restuarant open that had power in a sea of none...going inside the air-conditioned little place was like entering heaven on that 98deg day...eating a real live hot meal in a cool room was almost too much to stand...curiously, there was a large table of very clean and cool looking men and women discussing what sounded like engineer's speech....after a few moments, a lady from that group came over and asked how things were...mom and sis replied they felt blessed compared to many others and how they only had a tree down on the house...at this, the lady became very excited, and the next thing to happen was an exchange of phone numbers and then directions...the following day, 21 men showed up in two trucks, knights with boots and chainsaws, and in LESS than two hours, had not only completely removed and hauled off every twig of the house tree, but also had chopped up and stacked the other downed trees in the yard, each one a 75 year old pecan....this was a group of folk from a church in Gainsville, FL, who had driven up to help out as they could, and to Kallie Rose they were also an answer to her prayer, and even mom admits they bore more than passing resemblance to angels....angels armed with chainsaws rather than swords, as she put it.....and to those of you anguishing over the lack of anything being done, there are literally thousands of groups like this from all over, all there to help....and doing it, no matter what you think is happening due to national media coverage....they HAVE to start at the outside and work their way in, as without electricity which runs gas pumps and water pumps, and allows refrigeration and preservation of foodstuffs, the logistics quickly become a nightmare and more and more supplies need to be dedicated to sustaining operations rather than helping victims...and this doesn't even begin to cover other obstacle like roads blocked by debris....

Edited in PS-in case anyone wonders why I am not down there helping out, I have been ordered to stay away, as they are getting by fine thank you very much, and at the moment they don't need someone else stuck down there with no gas available and another mouth to feed....
 
Dawgonnit Mtngnr,
Ya done got me all misty eyed. :o

THIS is what it's all about. I'll bet there is way more of this behaviour than the looting and shooting that the media portrays.

I'm so happy your family is ok and got some help. Bless them.

Steve
 
but a mitigating circumstance is that both mom and sis work for the Corps of Engineers and will be very busy in relief efforts for the near future, and felt they needed to stay, despite being unable to do anything that they couldn't have done had they left and then waited until there was something there to work with...they also knew, as everyone on the coast does, that you need to be on an elevation high enough to escape any possibility of surge (which they are), and also had on hand the 7day supply of canned goods, water drawn in every container including tub, needed supplies like TP/paper plates/plastic utensiles/vehicles tanked up/etc...we gew up poor and still managed to do that each storm season even when it meant putting stuff away all the rest of the year (the other half) in dribs and drabs.....I've already had my say on the apparent masses of folk who didn't take all that into account, and so will close by way of thanks for your kind thoughts....
 
I've been hearing about grassroots help efforts and am glad your family was taken care of.


That restaruant sounds like a Twilight Zone episode.



munk
 
in any area aside from money spent...the main activity the federal efforts excell in is freeing monies for housing and clean-up, to include repairs to infrastructure, almost all of which are done by private companies....most other things are taken care of by all the charitable organisations including smaller groups like churches....there is not, nor has there been since the dismemberment of the Civil Defense, any coordinated plan nor means to execute such a plan at the federal level....

Edited in PS.....the restuarante struck as something out of Twilight Zone when I first heard it, too...one of the magical ( and best) episodes....

Edited in PPS....aside from the tree being taken off the house sooner rather than later (and for which mom insisted they take some money to help in their ministry), there is no one taking care of any of them..they are taking care of themselves...this sounds more strident than intended and is just inserted as a point of order...
 
Thanks for the info, and encouraging news! :)

Prayers for your family from the fingerlakes...

Tom
 
Beautiful mtngunr. :) Thanks forposting this. I have a friend in KY who's going down with a group from her church any time now(might have actually left today). As after most of these things, as you said, seems like the volunteer groups are doing a lot(or even most) of the actual work on the ground. Not saying red cross, salvation army, feed the children, etc aren't doing good work getting food and water down there and distributed, but also know there's lots of volunteer groups who went down there with boats, tools, etc.
 
They should be just fine.....by grassroots, I also include the major charities, because without the constant voluntary gifts of money and materiel, the charities would have nothing....it just seems many are expecting entirely too much from the government, and much too soon...everybody knows how large and inefficient giant companies like the USG are, and it's not like they could have a flotilla of rescue ships and trucks, tanks, helicopters stuffed with supplies, gas, water, etc on permanent standby just waiting for a storm to clear off so they could launch them...all that stuff has to be marshalled from literally all over the world....well, they could, but folk would howl at how much their taxes would go up, the same way they would howl at the cost of many more otherwise worthy goals that folk now think is the job of big brother to do, and it would still be very slow in getting going and still have mixed success just like any other institutionalized effort by any large an unwieldy organization.....folk do the best job when they really care, not when it is a career....
 
Thanks for sharing that heartwarming tale. The way the media is playing us, we have to be reminded that there are still people acting like humans down there.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top