Storm Clouds Passing

We didn’t have much of a winter here in North Texas, but Spring is a real bitch this year. As tornadoes swept across North Central Texas this week, I was reminded of the frailty of human life, but also the strength of the human spirit.

With homes wiped out, many neighbors were in tears hugging one another – not from grief of loss of possessions, but rather of joy that their friends and family were safe and alive. It was a series of miracles.  When one surveys the damage it is a wonder that no one was killed.

Roofs were torn off homes.  Trailers from huge eighteen-wheeler trucks tossed into the air like confetti. Debris littered across the landscape for miles. In some neighborhoods it looked like a giant power buzz saw had come through and cut the tops right off homes, churches and trees. And yet, next door, homes went unscathed.

That is what’s so strange in one of the storms – how one home can be demolished and the one sitting next to it doesn’t have a shingle out of place. But lives are not like that.  Everyone in the neighborhoods hit by these monsters were and are affected.  Even folks whose homes stand without as much as a mark, are touched by the loss their neighbors have endured.

It will take a city– a region pulling together– to make the healing begin. But heal we will.  We are Texans and we will pull together to right this terrible tragedy. But I am also reminded of places like Joplin, Mo and Tuscaloosa, Ala, where super cells came through and took more than roofs away. They took lives with them. For that we pray a new found prayer – one that comes from experience now– for those communities and others like them who have been struck by the ravages of nature.

My hope is that we can learn from this.  Build stronger, safer homes and get our early warning system (which worked very well) even better. But the truth of the matter is, you can’t predict Mother Nature. She will surprise you with her fury and her might. What you can do is thank your God and say your blessings that we dodged a huge bullet here, where others have not been so lucky.