Once upon a hoopty...

They are, apparently, calling it "Gust 2008." Outer edges of Hurricane Ike came through the Louisville area yesterday, Sunday September 14, with gusts up to 81 mph and not a drop of rain. So, now, 60% of Louisville and large percentages of residents in surrounding counties are without power, some 1/2 million people. Of course, this includes my beautiful wife and I. We were fortunate in terms of destruction to property: we only lost one of the temporary gazebos in the backyard. My next door neighbor lost a recent roofing job on her carport (at least it isn't the house, but still...that sucks). Also, the radio said that a 10-year-old boy was mowing the grass afterward and was killed by a falling tree limb, which may be one of the most tragic things I've heard. The electrical company says that power will be out for 10-14 days. The mayor and governor asked for assistance from surrounding states, but they are all cleaning up their own messes... and it seems that we and our surrounding states all sent trucks down to Texas to start getting to work cleaning up Galveston and Houston, etc.

So, really: nothing awful has happened in my life. I mean, I wasn't able to work today (I substitute and the county schools are all closed), and that's not going to help pay the bills, but I'm taking advantage of the fact and making it a point to mow the lawn and spend down time with the wife. We have a group from our church that usually meets together on Monday nights at our house, but we'll just be able to meet by candle-light, so I'm not at all disappointed by that.

However, I'm noticing in myself and the people around me that the rest of the world has become much less important today. I sat down to look at my news (I check headlines through google news), and I was almost surprised that our big gust wasn't making prominent headlines when it's such a big deal to my life. It made me think about people in war zones like Jerusalem and Sudan and '90s Bosnia and how the world must feel only as big as surviving until tomorrow and finding a safe place and protecting my family. So, I hope things are going well everywhere else. I'm not suffering so much that I need anything (although, it would be nice if the power was back on). I'm just myopically dealing with the crisis at hand and waiting until it all, if you'll excuse the pun, blows over.