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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
The World Turned Upside Down . A Time To Lift Ourselves Up.
At 4 p.m. last Sunday afternoon, like many families in Hugo, I was feeling very secure in my home. My column was written, the May 28 edition of The Citizen was virtually put to bed, corrections noted. I had no idea my carefully prepared front page was about to be wiped clean and reconstructed at 8 p.m. that night.
And then the sirens went off.
Unbelievably, at my house on 132nd Street in south-central Hugo, there were a few drops of rain and a bit of wind. Nothing else. I have lived in Hugo almost 23 years and have never seen a tornado.
Had it not been for the emergency 911 calls, I would never have known a tornado ripped through portions of northwestern Hugo two miles to the north, and wreaked horrible devastation on Hugo families, homes, and whole neighborhoods.
When my husband drove me north on Hwy. 61 and let me out-the State Patrol had blocked off access to vehicles into Creekview Preserve-it seemed to me that the whole world had turned upside down.
The streets down which the two of us ride our bikes on our 12-mile loop to Dunn Brothers for coffee were cluttered with siding, splintered wood, shingles, children's toys - and pieces of people's lives.
The scene was nothing like it looks on television.
The second round of storms caught many out on their driveways, surveying the damage and using cell phones to call loved ones. Everyone vanished as quickly as the golf-ball-sized hail appeared (but not quickly enough-I have massive bruises to prove it). One sheriff's deputy reportedly received stitches for a direct blow to the head from a hailstone.
Emergency equipment waited to access the streets.
In the two hours spent in that neighborhood, I saw neighbors checking on neighbors, children being reassured by grandparents, and the good people in emergency vehicles walking from house to house, turning off the natural gas and spray-painting garages as "OK."
Neighbors aren't just neighbors in times of trouble. They're a lifeline.
It has been 43 years since six people perished and over 150 people were injured in the Hugo tornado of 1965. Most of the people who live in Hugo now weren't around then. I certainly wasn't: in Washington State, I was 9 years old and about to experience an earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale while riding my school bus.
Devastation is part of the human experience, much as we hate to acknowledge that.
Nobody asks to have the simplest task made excruciatingly difficult because nothing is in the same place anymore.
Nobody asks to have their home ripped from its foundation.
Nobody asks to lose a child.
But the residents who have lost family members, or who have said goodbye to everything they own, haven't lost their neighbors.
When life turns ugly, neighbors turn to each other. That's what neighbors are for. Hugo neighbors can consider making a donation to the Red Cross, which makes a point to be there in times of trouble.
The Hugo Community Food Shelf and Lake Area Bank are accepting donations.
As Hugo's Good Neighbor Days celebration approaches, we need to be thankful that in this community, particularly, people look out for each other.
Good Neighbor Days is a time to lift ourselves - and our neighbors - up.
Goodness knows, we need it this year.