October 31, 2012 (Wednesday)
Hurricane Sandy is leaving her mark on the country as she winds down and exits eventually back to the North Atlantic. It was a Category 1, but as Hurricane Ike demonstrated, that’s not the whole story. As in Ike, the rising water ahead of the storm did tremendous damage all by itself. One town on an island has been buried in the sand as sand-filled water gushed over every building. West Virginia saw the effects of a cold jet stream as it produced snow along with the high winds. A full moon caused a high tide to be even higher and the storm surge came at the same time, sending 14 feet of water into lower Manhattan Island. The subways are all flooded, power is absent from communities from Ohio to South Carolina. While there are deaths, so far search and rescue efforts have not found as many as one might expect from such a huge disaster. The costs in dollars will be astronomical, and in human suffering will be hard to bear.
Doubtless there will be opportunities to donate or help in other ways. Many will respond. That’s just the way we are. We are part of a community that is bigger than we are as individuals. Conditions like this remind us of that fact.
If a gigantic storm like this had come along to strike the same areas in the long ago when only native Americans lived here, doubtless they would have followed the signs of nature and would have endured it. The people in other parts of the country would never have heard about it. But today, millions of people occupy the territory, and millions of people around the world carry telephones that can take pictures and make video clips of everything that happens. Television and other means of communication flood all of us with information on a daily basis. All this produces stress, not only for those experiencing disasters, but for the rest of us as well.
In such an era of human history, it behooves us to place great value on our faith and to trust in the Lord.