This week, my home state of Vermont experienced castatrophic flooding. I’m not going to pretend to understand or explain the science of it, but suffice it to say, the ground is saturated, and it rained a lot.
Check out this NBC footage of one flooded town, home to the well known Okemo Mountain.
This is my third experience with a natural disaster in my lifetime.
In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene ravaged Vermont and New Hampshire. People died. Rivers were rerouted. Roads swallowed up into the rushing water. Homes and coffins were washed out and rushed away on the muddy churning water.
One particular story from TS Irene will remain with me forever. I was volunteering with a large group of people to shovel all of the silt and mud and gunk from the basement of a home in West Windsor, Vermont. This was the home of a middle to upper income family, who had a small business in their basement, run by the father and son. At the end of a very long, hot and muddy day (Irene came crashing through in August) in that basement, I looked over to see the father leaning on his shovel staring at the empty basement where he and his son’s business setup once stood with a single tear running down his cheek. He was silent. In that moment I realized that struggle is relative, no matter how wealthy or poor you are.
The other story from this particular family is that the father rescued his wife from the front yard as the flooding began to overtake their property, she was clinging to a pine tree along the side of the houe as the rushing water threatened to carry her away. The entire experience was very traumatic for them. I can only hope that the community gathering around them, and the volunteer helped them take their first step to healing.
If you have read this blog at all, you are familiar with our experience with Hurricane Ian in September of 2022, from which we are still very much in recovery in every aspect. If you’d like to read about it, you can jump to that post here.
I believe that experiences in life are less “Good or Bad” and more opportunites to learn. Ian came with it’s own lessons, and I want to share two of them.
#1: You can live with a lot less than you think.
#2: There is always someone who has it worse than you, so be grateful for what you have.
As I watch my home state struggle with this disaster all I can do is pray for them, send my love to them, and hope that they come together, as they did after Irene, and help each other.
As for Hurricane Ian recovery, in the past nine months it’s become political, and an absolute travesty for those of us trying to put our homes and our lives back together. We have hope as our home is put back together a little bit at a time with very little insurance funds, and help from friends and family.
We will be whole soon.
Thoughtfully,
Marie