lornamatic

There was a pretty scary morning a few weeks back, when the sky opened up and came crashing down on Newburgh, Indiana. Mike grew up in Newburgh. That morning, it took a while to get in touch with loved ones living in town, and I’ll never forget the feeling of loading a news website, just part of my normal routine, and seeing that main story. Thankfully, everyone we know was safe.

Tragically, many people lost their homes, and some people lost their lives. Thankfully, the community banded together and churches and community groups offered rescue, shelter, and assistance.

We are in town for the holiday, and today, we saw some of the tornado damage. After witnessing the destruction, I am amazed that the number of fatalities was not much higher. Thankfully, the weather has turned cold, hopefully ending this season’s thunderstorms.

Devastation is probably too light a word to describe the ruined areas. My heart broke at some of the scenes I saw today. It looked like this:

Rows of perfect houses and manicured lawns and one of the houses is missing some shingles and then there’s a little debris by the side of the road and then suddenly there’s nothing but debris. Broken trees, ruined furniture, artifacts of someone’s daily life reduced to scraps. Shattered windows, clumps of cotton candy insulation, blue tarps covering wrecked roofs.

I saw a cracked-open kitchen wall, a slate blue front door hanging off its hinges next to oak cabinetry, brass fixtures, a phone jack with a broken cord leading to nowhere. Between three perfect, intact, untouched houses.

I saw a ruined brick building, shattered windows, second story and roof gone, twisted aluminum siding wrapped around the edge, and the remnants of rescue workers, spraypaint on the walls, caution tape on the door, and an American flag hung from an exposed wooden beam.

I saw a home ripped open as if with a huge electric saw, one entire wall cleaved off, leaving three rooms open to the elements. On one side, the exposed room held only a rocking chair. The room on the other side held a computer monitor, a changing table, and a quilt. The room in the middle used to be a playroom – in one corner was the obligatory pile of dolls and toys. There was a hobby horse, the painted plastic kind, on springs, with a metal base. It was upside-down, tossed across the room from the force of the winds and pressure.

I just can’t get the image of that house out of my head – I can’t stop thinking of that family and hoping they are OK. I hope they were able to give thanks together today. Were they able to gather around a table with family and friends, eating too much turkey and stuffing? I hope so.

We did. And I’m truly thankful that we could.

All across the internet.

I don’t really have the right words to say about the tragedy in the Gulf States, or worse, the ineptitude our government has demonstrated in dealing with it.

I’ll just leave you with these two links to think about:

Quoted from Gone with the Water, National Geographic, October 2004:

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn’t—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City.
full story…

And from August 30th’s Washington Post, Destroying FEMA:

This year it was announced that FEMA is to “officially” lose the disaster preparedness function that it has had since its creation. The move is a death blow to an agency that was already on life support. In fact, FEMA employees have been directed not to become involved in disaster preparedness functions, since a new directorate (yet to be established) will have that mission.
full story…

Then finally I understood why I was there, after few hours. Security guards at the university had printed out all the websites I was reading while I was online there. They were accusing me of “reading terrorism sites” and “having communications with foreign terrorists”.

Khalid is free.