I’m upset.
My heart hurts.
The past two weeks of current events have had my emotions all over the place.
It started when I was napping on a lazy afternoon two Fridays ago.
Our tornado sirens woke me.
The skies were clear, the radio said the storms were losing power and moving south and that no funnel clouds had actually made contact with the ground.
I thought I was fine to drive down I-70 for the weekend.
I loaded my things around 6 that night and went on my way.
The storm had a different idea.
It had changed direction and picked up momentum as it moved across the state.
Long story short, in order to save my car from grapefruit-sized hail and the damaging winds and tornado that tore apart the St. Louis airport and Bridgeton, I hung out in a parking lot in Warrenton for two hours.
I made it to my destination and we watched with our eyes glued to the TV as Lambert Field and Bridgeton dug through the rubble and rejoiced that no one was injured.
Flash forward to the Southern states and what they went through last week as tornados cut ugly paths, leaving only splinters: pure devastation.
There aren’t any words.
I know pictures cannot do it justice.
One of my idols, Ree Drummond, has a wonderful donation plan you read about
here, and if you can, please donate to the Red Cross, they are a vital support system for our country.
http://www.redcross.org/ As everyone already knows, along with our tornado heavy spring, we comes rain. The Mississippi River is called the mighty Mississippi for a reason. She means business. Her waters have swelled, spilling into tiny river towns, soaking numerous states, and the water worries are even reaching down to New Orleans. My apartment I move into in two weeks in Memphis, Tennessee is currently inaccessible because of flooding, and the water is only expected to rise. The recent weather has been a very dramatic and saddening time for the Midwest and the South. But there is one Missouri story that really gets me, and has made national news from coast to coast. It hurts, I can’t read the stories and at the same time I can’t look away. The town of Cairo, Illinois is flooding, the people have evacuated, and apparently the only way to save it is to flood Missouri. The Army Corp of Engineers went ahead with their plans to save the town of Cairo last night by blasting a New Madrid, Missouri levee. One year ago I drove through Cairo. It is an old river hub, filled with crumbling, majestic houses and an antiquity you find in charming old Southern towns, and I will never forget what it looked like because it struck a chord with me. Google it. Its history is rich. Across the river from Cairo is the Missouri bootheel. An equally majestic place of fertile Delta soil, and a historic home to generations of Missouri farmers. Hundreds of which had to evacuate their homes, their lands, sell their animals, their machinery, sacrifice years and years of hard work, dedication to their land and families, and stand helplessly as a “mini tsunami” overtook their possessions, possibly never to be seen again. I understand this decision is for public safety, I understand the logic behind it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I am not even immediately affected by these events, but I love my state. Agriculture is a vital part of our heritage and livelihood, not to mention the personal hurt, despair, and helplessness each family that just lost everything is feeling. Hundreds of thousands of acres of some of the richest soil in our hemisphere was just destroyed and it will never be the same. It cannot be replaced. As the world’s demand for food grows, we have to start considering the consequences of these types of events, and how it not only affects us, but the future as well.
Read more here:
