I just caught up to this thread. I posted about my experience in a different thread. a few thoughts.
If you can’t get there to help, fall on your knees and thank God it wasn’t you, and turn the prayer steam up to overload. It does help.
I almost feel guilty because we knew it was coming here (N Atlanta), and then I talked about how it was kind of a fizzle for us. a lot of rain, and I lost power for most of the day, but that happens regularly here with summer thunderstorms, and winter ice storms. I didn’t realize how hard people just a little bit west of me and north of me got smashed up.
back in the day, I had a company that did emergency response on chemical spills and such. The fire department does that stuff now. I’m still on the list, so I went and babysat and overflowing Creek with my flashy lights so none of the drunks were drowned when they ran into it. that’s the way I joked about it, but north of us there were a few people who were swept away. Fortunately, all survived.
One thought on the bio lab fire. First, they make swimming pool chemicals. A lot of chlorine compounds. There was a little electrical fire on the roof, which caused a sprinkler to go off. The nature of the chemicals underneath is such that they go into a chain reaction. It releases heat, but it’s not really a fire, but it also releases chlorine gas. You can’t fight that fire with water, and Atlanta is not set up to handle that kind of a chemical fire. Decisions were made to let it burn out, which is actually still going on. The big chlorine gas release was only the first day, and after that, the amount of gas being released easily dissipated very close to the facility. On the other hand, if you suited up guys to go in and save the facility, which was already totally destroyed, the gas is so poisonous you put the responders at risk. Again the decision was made to let it burn out. Having been involved in these things in an earlier life, I always chuckle a little bit when the people all around them say “how could they let them build that in this residential area?” The plant was built there when it was open field, now it’s a suburb.
A different thought from my past on the power of mother nature. I got hit in the 98 Dunwoody tornado. The tornado was actually about 10 houses down the road, and I got hit by what’s called “straight wind.” They estimated a 150 to 200 mile an hour wind wind came down as if blown through a blower, creating a giant golf diet that used to be the top floor of my house. Neighbor on one side at $500 in damage, neighbor on the other side at $5000 in damage. Guy behind me had $10,000, and the guy across the street had $30,000. Our claim was almost a half million dollars. Mother nature is amazing, but nowhere as evil as State Farm when they were handling the claim.
I don’t mean any of this to be “woe is me,” but rather to share the experience a little bit. For the people west and north of me they were devastated, it’s always in the news for a few days, but it took me almost 2 years to get back into my house. That was 1998, and there’s stuff that still not done. And operating with absolutely nothing, and these people don’t even have roads and phone coverage. They need everything. I already wrote a check to the Red Cross, I’m old and feeble, but I’m trying to organize some neighbors shipping some stuff up that way, mostly working with my church. If all you have is a pack of gum and a postage stamp, they need it. You can send it blind, care of the post office, at that zip code. Pots and pans, good used clothes, canned foods, anything you haven’t thrown away, but you don’t really need will be like gold to them at this moment.
Finally, when I got hit, there were policeman on the street that night guarding the wreckage against looting, the fire department was here constantly for several days, FEMA was here, the Georgia emergency management was here, etc., Etc., The Red Cross set up Food trucks All free That night and the next day and for weeks thereafter.
Where the F is FEMA, Biden, Kamala, the military (at the direction of Biden), etc. etc. We can airlift an Abrams tank halfway across the world in 16 or 18 hours. Why are these people running out of food and water? Trump showed up with food, water, and tankers of gasoline (below Macon), he’s still working, and he’s not even in charge, and he’s organizing more.
Did I mention pray if you can’t do anything else?
My 2 cents, hope it helps
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