A Flood of Emotion ….. Aftermath of Hurricane Florence

 

I grew up in North Carolina and unfortunately hurricanes are a fact of life. With the passing years each storm seems more devastating than the last. When a hurricane hits, it is a tragedy and the media focuses on it for a couple of days but then a new story pops up and they are gone.  What’s left are shattered lives, dreams and hopes.

Folks rebuild, replace, star over, but forever a piece of them is gone. All that they have worked for their entire lives washed or blown away like the flood waters and winds that took it. The massive amount of strength required to get through something like this is amazing. The tears and heartbreak is real. The feeling of helplessness is real. The guilt that you could have done something different is real. The truth is that no one can be totally prepared for a natural disaster. We try ….sometimes we fail. How do you prepare for apocalyptic circumstances that are totally unknown?

Florence stalled for 3 long grueling days and beat us with rain measured in feet not inches. Never in history has a hurricane stalled. So how would you see that coming when it has never happened? Even with the sophisticated equipment, modern technology and hundreds of years of experience with weather forecasting they didn’t know that this was going to happen! 

Hopefully, this film will let everyone see how severe the circumstances can become. How quickly life can change and how little control we have over the outcome. So where do we go from here?  Rebuilding takes time, money and hope. Hope for the future that it won’t ever be this bad again. We must educate our communities to better prepare them for the future. We must interact with emergency management preparedness to improve their plans. We must always remember that these are victims and made the best choices that they could make at the time. Modern technology tells us that yes these storms are becoming more severe, so better education, preparedness and planning will be a way of life.

You can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwI6lmG7dQc&t=3247s