ive never really been around a big disaster before
except in the 90s when the jarrell texas tornado hit
jarrell and killed folks and sucked away a whole subdivision
down to the concrete slabs and sucked the hide off cows
some of the missing folks were never found
now my brother and i were driving back from arkansas
as we left waco heading south on i35 to home
the sky just sort of got weird looking like
if you have been around storms and tornadoes
you know that almost weird feeling you get inside
looking at it
its almost a 6th sensing it
little did we know that the tornadoes were just ahead of us
they thank goodness outran us down the interstate
folks we knew were affected
one was found in her bathtub hanging in a tree
some turned out ok
i had a lot of patients who lived in jarrell texas
who were directly affected or their families were
its a scar on their memories and on jarrell
that still lingers today
the next disaster that i have been close to is the
santa barbara montecito fires and the following mudslides
folks these disasters dont care how much money you have
what color you are what your sexual orientation is
whether you are male or female old or young
they are a nondiscriminating disaster that destroys
and kills those things in its path
i didnt know any who were killed here
but ive met a lot that were affected
we even evacuated out of here ourselves twice
once for the fire and once for the flood
luckily we were just a few miles away from the disaster
mainly we were affected directly by the smoke
we couldnt hardly breathe
easily taking care of by leaving
to see the destruction so close by
like the jarrell texas tornado
will remain with us forever
as i was thinking about this this morning
all i could think of was
puerto rico
thinking how lucky we are to be on the mainland
and to be an american citizen
oh thats right they are american citizens
these folks unlike the jarrell folks or the montecito
folks could only run so far
since the ocean was their barrier to escape
they did have warning
but what could they do about it
the montecito folks had some warning but many didnt heed it
when it hit them the floods there was no time
to escape
the jarrell folks had no prewarning time to escape
many like the montecito folks were doomed
the puerto ricans were sort of doomed too
where could they go
some lucky ones flew to the manland
but just a few
then like with jarrell and with montecito there was
total destruction
if you live here you have seen the amazing work that the
government organizations have done
those amazing fire fighters the police the cal trans folks
the corp of engineers all the local help
amazing was the response
to the devastating disaster
so it was with the jarrell disaster
it seems that puerto rico hasnt fared as well on the recovery efforts
i try to ignore the partisan opinions on this
i just know that the recovery for whatever reason doesnt seem
to be going as fast as what ive seen before
even with harvey in texas
i just know that weve seen the heruculan work done around here
i wish some of that effort could be sent to
puerto ricos way
lets dont forget them
it just seems we have
the organicgreen doctor
No comments:
Post a Comment