Thursday, May 4, 2017

May The Fourth Be With You

If you have been anywhere near the Internet recently, you know there is a meme based on the famous Star War quote "May the Force be with you".  I have many friends who love puns, but I am terrible (in a non-punny way) at making them up.

For this May 4, I am thinking of force, but not the Force of Star Wars fame.  Instead, I'm thinking of the forces of nature.

Flooding.  Tornadoes.  And for us in the Binghamton, New York area, wind and rain.

Thousands without power.  Hundreds and hundreds of trees down, including at least twelve in our jewel of a park, Otsiningo Park.

Our state of emergency from Monday was lifted yesterday afternoon but thousands were still without power, including co workers who had had no electricity or water since the storm Monday evening.

Neighbors came together to help neighbors.

More and more, we get these (for us) unusual storms.  And I am grateful that, this time, it wasn't a flood.

We learned one important lesson  We had a plan for flood (since we were in one in 2011 but nothing for this type of disaster.  We were fortunate that neither we nor my brother in law lost power, and that the brother in law was available to help my mother in law and my disabled brother in law, "B" when they lost power (their power is back).  My spouse was at his job, meantime, doing hard physical labor as a result of how the business he works for was impacted by the storm.

We weren't adequately prepared.  Neither were, I suspect, a lot of people.  Are you prepared for a disaster? I can see a blog post for the future.

Will we learn our lesson for next time?

In honor of all our downed trees, I link to #ThursdayTreeLove

Treasure your trees, as they may be gone tomorrow.

While we continue to recover locally, a picture from April 29 of a beautiful redbud branch in bloom.

Join other bloggers at #ThursdayTreeLove and love a tree today.

May the Force be with us all.

10 comments:

  1. They are predicting 2 -4 inches of rain for us today. I have no idea where it will go since I still have puddles in my yard.

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  2. I guess you're opting for the Fourth to be with you since the Force was against you...

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  3. I understand. We're still recovering from Hurricane Sandy. But it was wonderful to see how Long Islanders helped each other in the immediate aftermath of the storm.

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  4. I hope you are adequately prepared for the natural disasters. Take care and stay safe!

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  5. The forces of nature are so uncertain! Hope you and your family are safe.

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  6. Hope the weather improves. When trees fall, it really hurts. Ages to grow and a storm takes them down.

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  7. I think no one is nearly as prepared for disasters as we should be. Natural or otherwise.

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  8. Hurrican Sandy in 2012 helped to cure us of some of our "unpreparedness". We're not every 100% ready.... but we're much better than we were.

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  9. Yes, we need to be prepared for storms and other disasters. The weather has changed.

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  10. Natures mood swings beyond our control - all we can do is stay prepared.

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