Just a few miles from here, towns have been destroyed by the hurricane that shall remain nameless.  Countless homes are under massive amounts of water.  The rivers haven’t all crested yet and I imagine that the topography in these areas has been permanently changed.

I can’t even begin to imagine the heartache and stress that these people must be feeling.  The angst we experienced when a large tree fell on our house after a microburst five years ago is nothing compared to what it must feel like to witness your home and all your possessions succumbing to a flood.

There are those who say that the storm was overhyped because the eastern seaboard and New York City weren’t impacted nearly as much as people thought they would be.  That’s bullshit and it’s insulting to those who are living a nightmare right now.

It’s cliche, I know, but I am truly amazed by the force of Mother Nature and its randomness.  Our town was incredibly hard hit by fallen trees five years ago, but escaped relatively unscathed last weekend.  This time, some towns that had never seen flooding were among the worst off.  Then there are those towns that are in flood zones.  They say lightning doesn’t strike twice, but some have been hit over and over again in the last few years.  Unless the government can find a way to manage these rivers, new building should be forbidden in these areas, and the property owners should be bought out and their land condemned so that they can start over.

It’s incredibly beautiful outside right now.  Which makes it that much harder to believe that up and down the East Coast so many are suffering.