This Just In – As our region begins the months-years long process of cleanup and recovery from a natural disaster, we are reminded of a basic principle of a civil society (and the insurance business):
We’re all in this together.
I was on social media last week taking in the usual assortment of nonsense about the election and sports and so on and I ran across a comment from some guy explaining that all the hype in our area about preparing for Hurricane Helene was just that – hype.
We’re so far inland, he said, that the storm will be very weakened by the time it gets to North Carolina. It will just be rain, he said, and mostly in the mountains anyway.
My response: You’re new here, aren’t you?
Bless his heart.
The devastation that has been delivered to the western part of our state, South Carolina and Georgia is unfathomable and well documented elsewhere.
I am struck by the clarity that such events can bring on the human level. Boxer Mike Tyson famously said, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” The southeast just got punched in the face and the entire country is punching back. From coast to coast, first responders are flocking in to help get food, water and power to a desperate population that is largely cut off both physically and electronically.
Appalachia is a region that most typically could be expected to vote for smaller government and lower taxes. Be assured … today they probably want the biggest, best equipped, most robust federal government possible and they’re getting it.
This is what we do for each other as citizens. This is not even slightly about left or right, red or blue. It’s about civility and human decency. There are some trying to promote disinformation that this response is not happening and that we are living in a dystopian hellscape, but if you listen to local and state officials in all affected states, that just isn’t so.
It’s a bad time to be lying about how citizens of every stripe help each other in an emergency.
Sheriff Blackwood and some of his colleagues travelled to the region and described what they saw. Brighton McConnell’s story on this gives a great overview. Imagine Franklin Street (and Eastgate) under nine feet of water, tractor trailers floating past stop signs and entire houses swept away.
My head hurts.
My political two cents here is that I think our community and indeed most American communities are eager to work together again and pitch in to help each other when needed. I think we want to act collectively through the massive power of the federal government to sweep in and assist the vulnerable. That’s how we see ourselves as citizens – not contestants in the Hunger Games.
This is why we need a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
This is why we need a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
This is why we need a National Guard.
This is why we pay our taxes.
This is why.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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