Sad...

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I realize that this is off topic, but needed to get this off my chest...

Just got off work at the hospital... seems a tornado touched down at a campground at Pine Lake, just east of Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. Lots of injured and some unconfirmed reports that a number of people died. Tornados are not something we get that often here, but makes one think how much we are at the whim of Nature. I'm still in a bit of shock over this...

Harry
 
Harry,

My sympathies. The aftermath can be mind numbing.

Living on a barrier island in South FL we are subject to the vagaries of the weather and spend six months of the year watching hurricane models and predictions. It can get pretty dicey quickly.

Having ridden a motorcycle in the vicinity of tornadoes while on a cross country trip, I can attest to the major pucker factor involved there as well.

Nature is magnificent, but awesome in its fury.

Blues

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Live Free or Die

Some Knife Pix
 
Saw the aftermath on CNN today - OY!

One moment you're enjoying a vacation at the lake. Next moment, tossed and battered about, and maybe thrown into the lake. Not everybody's accounted for yet.

And people think the Reaper needs their help.
frown.gif



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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
Not fun at all. There apparently was a kids camp in the vicinity where this happened so good karma that they were spared! This tornado business still turns my stomach even now.

Harry

BTW, if this thread needs to be transferred to the GBU forum, fine with me.

[This message has been edited by Kozak (edited 07-15-2000).]
 
Having lived in Oklahoma all my life, I've never actually seen a tornado. But I have seen their aftermath. From the little ones that cut a slim, ragged path through the woods for a couple hundred yards, to the "skipping" one that struck Tulsa about five years that took out a church (Methodist, if you're wondering) and eight miles over a truck stop but nothing else, to the monster that struck Oklahoma City last year.

It was hard to wrap my mind around that last one. A week or so after, we drove over to OKC and our first visual was the outlet mall halfway between OKC and Tulsa. It looked like it had been bombed. My sister's family lives about a block and a half from the tornado path. Their house was covered with dirt and the backyard fence was gone, but no other damage. A block and a half away it was smooth concrete slabs and wreckage, maybe a hundred yards wide.

For about an hour, my parents knew the tornado path and could not contact my sister's family. It was probably one of the most dreadful moments in my parent's lives. (My sister left the area minutes before it struck. This is usually not considered a smart move, but the TV was saying if you can't get below ground you will not survive, so they left. This is the only time the TV has ever used such a warning.)

[This message has been edited by kevinb17 (edited 07-16-2000).]
 
Harry, things happen we don't know why. The pain and suffering of others can be so overwhelming we want to blame and hate something. If it's a so-called "act of God", hate God. If it's something done by part of one ethnic group to part of another ethnic group, then becoming racist.

Hating someone else it's said is like drinking a glass of poison and waiting for the SOB you hate to die. The hatred corrodes your own gut and soul like battery acid from the inside out. I know cause I let that happen to me ( I used to do child abuse investigations ). I'm alive because I eventually _refused_ to hate anyone or anything, including myself, anymore.

Caring about others opens you to being hurt or feeling their devastation. But if you don't let yourself care you don't experience life fully, with it' rewards, including loving and being loved.

I guess the Aussies would say "Good on you" for feeling as you do. It puts you on a special list in my book, one of proven good people.

( Rant mode off - my own opinion only. Far as moving the topic somewhere else, remember Uncle Bill's usuall comment on similar themes: "What does this have to do with khukuries? Everything!" )

( The other quote finally came to mind: "Love cannot enter a heart full of fear and resentment." And yet another observation is that since we tend to find what we go looking for, might as well make life into a search for joy. )

[This message has been edited by Rusty (edited 07-16-2000).]
 
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