Headlines scream at us! Warning! Raging Storms Forming!
We are blessed to live in times that Science can predict most of our weather. Warnings can be given in time for preparations to commence. We are even learning to predict volcanos, tornadoes, and earthquakes. It’s not perfect, but technology helps us to be ready.
This hasn’t always been so. As I’m from Texas, I grew up in the armpit of the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal waters are primarily murky and seldom blue like other locations. Frequently hurricanes showed up. In 1900, a massive storm rolled over Cuba on September 4th. Everyone thought it was headed to Florida. Communication of the times was poor, and the fourth largest town in Texas, Galveston, had no warning. They were caught by surprise. In just four seconds, the water was four feet high, 7,000 buildings were destroyed, 10,000 became homeless, and an estimated 8,000 were killed. Galveston was barely above sea level (9 feet), so the storm surge covered the island. Today there are sea walls built to hold the waters at bay. Good evacuation routes are known, and high bridges go across the bay to the mainland.
Here in Washington, as the Fall makes herself known, we gear up for the storms that are normal for the season. Storms that last for days, nicknamed the “Pineapple Express,” come from the neighborhood of Hawai’i sweep across the Pacific and pound the western states with hurricane-force winds. We’ve had gusts to 100 mph that lasted for days!
This weekend is no different. A new term is being coined. “Bomb Cyclone!” Sounds scary!
Yesterday, we spent time anchoring the porch and creating a safe space for the dogs and six puppies still under our care. Just in time, I screwed the last board, and we escaped the rains and winds to the comfort of the dry house. Quick! Cook dinner in case we lose power! (Every year, this happens!)
False Alarm
Sometimes it’s nothing but a false alarm. Best guess may suggest something will happen, so let’s get the word out.
We’ve watched Mt. St Helen’s start to steam and regrow the dome that was blown away back in 1980 – the year we moved to Alaska. As we relocated, we drove through the area headed north, and it was a messy experience. Ash and rain on all the roads! Today, any day, could it do it again? It’s always possible. We’re patiently prepared Mt Rainier to come alive. It’s our closest somewhat dormant volcano!
Events warnings were often briskly delivered in Alaska, covering snow, rain, ice, volcano, tidal waves, and other brutal conditions, including williwaws. Since you’re dealing with life-threatening events, you take special notes. Frigid Temperatures! Pipes covered. Cars fueled and ready for emergencies. Everything plugged in that needs to warm everything and everyone. We dressed in layers. Snow boots. Even the generator is ready!
Since moving to Washington, we’ve only experienced a handful of days where the temperature moved into triple digits. Most folks here do not have AC, so preparing for scorching heat is especially noteworthy. This year (2021), we topped out around 114 degrees! I never remember this kind of heat in Houston! Three days in a row of over 100+ temperatures! No! Where’s my natural AC?
Like the boy crying wolf, given enough false alarms, we reach a time when we don’t trust the warning.
2020 Forward
I don’t want to agonize over the past 600+ days of C-19. But 2020 was to be the Perfect Vision year. And the official year of my retirement, according to most scenarios, played out for any number of folks who turned 65, and that included me. It’s not that I was looking at pulling the plug. Retirement is not on my horizon.
How did we miss it? Were there warning signs in 2019? Well, it’s called C-19 for a reason. The coded statement of the disease that created our predicament comes from the description: “coronavirus disease 2019.” The first death we know of happened on January 9th, 2020, in Wuhan, China. It began in 2019, but from there and then, it quickly spread around the world. The first death in Washington was in February 2020. The month my bride began her retirement journey.
So. Where does that put us? Did we miss the mark? Who was warning us? Did we not hear? Was someone crying wolf too many times, and it just didn’t affect us because we’ve listened to it too much? What created this calamity?
We’re facing a new world. Whether it’s politics, economic, environmental, or even health, we are scurrying forward into a “Brave New World.” We are far from ready. Aldous Huxley published this work in 1932 and looked ahead to a future of 632 years after Ford’s assembly line was revered as god-like. You really should click on the link and remind yourself of a writer’s viewpoint that in just ten years, it will be 100 years old.
Life Is About Change
I suspect life has always had significant crises that changed the world. Historians document major “ages” of life that had subcategories of development and change. Prehistory, Classical, Middle Ages, Early Modern, and Modern. These are different classifications of the older method Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages. Regardless of the method of denoting time, imagine those living through these times as learning to adapt as the history of humanity moves forward.
We even think of similar periods uniquely with our Bible. Old Testament. New Testament. Old Covenant. New Covenant.
Technology has changed our outlook on life. Think about hardwired rotary dialed telephones and the gadget you carry around with you everywhere and all the time. Smart Phones! There was a time I wished for working from home as normal, and now? Past my years of working in IT, many enjoy the opportunity of utilizing technology to do just that through the pandemic, and many do not want to return to yesteryear and commute to a job!
Think about life in the long view or short span, and you find we experience great changes that pass swiftly or linger for decades.
Life is nothing if it’s not caught in the throes of challenging change.
We are in a news cycle of life as we once knew it, and trying to determine what it will be like next!
Though God says he does not change (Malachai 3:6), the world we live in changes every day. I’ve made nearly 67 trips around the sun. If each rotation of the earth equals 24 hours, and one rotation around the sun in 365.256 days, I’ve traveled great distances in the years of my life. We are 93 million miles from the sun, and we travel approximately 940 million miles each orbital year. That’s approximately 62 Billion Miles!
Why do I think things will stay the same year after year?
Life changes. We need to roll with it. I must adapt, or I will fall victim to the storm. Evacuation Route, anyone?