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.
Join other bloggers at #ThursdayTreeLove and love a tree today.
May the Force be with us all.
