Individual Responses to Natural Disasters

I don’t ever remember a run of natural disasters and tragedies like the current one!
by Charlie Leck

The savage tornadoes that ripped through Alabama early this spring seemed like the ultimate of storms. Such wide spread devastation, ruin and home-wrecking seemed more horrible than the mind and heart could take. Yet, as you all know, it was only the beginning of the storms of terror that would rip into our nation. High winds and flooding have left thousands and thousands of Americans homeless and struggling to handle the normal, everyday demands of life.

A category one tornado hit Minneapolis a few days ago. It left a thousand or more people without places to live. A lot of the people involved were already low on resources and didn’t have much backup. Looking at the photographs of that damage and reading the reports of the pain the storm left in its aftermath, I am left in awesome wonder at what a category five storm, like the one that hit Joplin, must be like. Now, last evening another monster tornado struck in Oklahoma.

I can barely look at the news reports of the losses and the chaos down there or up here. It is too painful.

One can only figure out some way to give of oneself in the face of such agony. As I wrote to a fellow blogger, I’ll forget that new golf club I was going to buy and that little trip I had in the back of my mind. I began searching for the safest and most effective way to make financial donations to these areas of suffering.

Here at home, I gave through a project of the Minneapolis Foundation – Give Minnesota (Razoo.com). I’m confident my money will get right to where it’s most needed. Nationally, I give to the American Red Cross. I’m not as confident with that big, bureaucratic organization, but I can’t come up with better ideas. If you’ve got any, let me know.

I only hope that all of you will give. Even if you have just a little, try to find a way to give to your fellow Americans in this hour of tragedy.

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