Something That Cannot Be Prepared For
Kevin Felts 08.29.17
Preppers have their bugout bags, freeze-dried food, and shelves of stockpiled ammunition. Everything they need to survive a collapse of society. However, there is one thing that no amount of prepping will prepare you for, and that is the emotional toll of a disaster.
Watching Hurricane Harvey brings back memories of Hurricane Ike in 2008. Major media did not pay much attention to small communities flooded by that storm surge. In Bridge City, a small Texas town nestled between Orange and Port Arthur, almost every home got water in it; some as much as nine feet, others, just a few inches.
Many of my friends and family members, mom and dad included, lost just about everything to Hurricane Ike’s storm surge.
When the rebuild process started, streets of Bridge City were lined with debris from gutted homes. Debris? More like memories. There were beds, furniture, clothes, books, everything we use in our daily lives, piled high for pickup as trash.
Mom and dad had a rental house in Bridge City on the opposite side of town from their residence. While checking on the rental house, we saw a young girl who was maybe 12 years old sobbing in the arms of her father. Their family lost everything to Hurricane Ike. They were renting and did not have flood insurance.
Then\ there was a friend of mine who’d recently lost his dad; when I drove by his parents’ house, his mother was sitting outside with a glazed look on her face. She appeared to be in a state of shock, thoroughly overwhelmed. There were people with her, attempting to provide some comfort.
As we watch the flooding from Hurricane Harvey, we do not see the emotional toll the storm has taken, and will continue to take.
Hurricane Harvey will wash away years of hard work. Items that hold decades of memories will be set on the curb for trash pickup.
The rebuilding process will take years, maybe even decades.
