Unscathed by a National Disaster

Last week the part of Colorado where I live experienced horrendous flooding. The water made all of the mountain streams flash flood into the cities and farming communities below. Hundreds of people lost their homes. Several thousand were evacuated. The damage was extensive. Entire towns were taken out and no longer exist at all. It will take years to rebuild bridges, roads, houses and other structures, as well as businesses. The storm was called a National Emergency Disaster fairly soon after the flooding started and the National Guard and people who had helped with hurricane Katrina came to rescue people and help with the devastation.

Everyone was on alert. My phone announced every few hours for a number of days that flash flooding was a possibility. Day and night the phone would ring or vibrate. Many roads were closed because of water covering them or bridges that were washed out. This made travel nearly impossible. People were advised stay at home unless absolutely necessary so that emergency vehicles could get through.

Blessedly, my home was spared. There was a drainage ditch nearby but it did not overflow—although all the people in the area kept close watch on it. The rain was torrential and steady for days. My parking lot was constantly covered by several inches of water all through the weekend.

I will be forever grateful that I didn’t have to deal with losing my belongings or have to wade through mud to recover them, as many have had to do. Even though I didn’t encounter physical harm or disaster I can’t minimize my experience of the disaster.

Emotionally the flood was frazzling. Fear was the overriding feeling that accompanied the rain and the flooding. My anxiety level was through the roof! I couldn’t relax and the rain just kept falling and pounding. I couldn’t leave and go anywhere and that created a trapped feeling, one of my all-time most challenging feelings. It took all the energy I had just to maintain a sense of equilibrium.

Many people lost electricity. I did not. That didn’t take away the anxiety that it might go out and I might be without my phone—communication with the outer world. I had plenty of food and found myself eating just to calm myself.

I am certain that many people were affected with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the ordeal. I know all week even after the sun came out and everyone started assessing the damage, I was tired and emotionally wasted. I had to be particularly gentle with myself. I required less activity and more sleep. It was definitely a healing process that I was encountering and I am just now beginning to feel like myself again.

Being in a National Disaster but being on the outside is an interesting experience. It reminded me of growing up in Kansas when tornados would whirl through and we would huddle in a root cellar or in the basement until it passed. This time, though it went on for days. The flood of 2013 will go down in history as the worst in recorded history. I can’t believe it happened all around me and I was not directly affected by it like many people. I feel deep gratitude, as I don’t know how well I would have handled losing everything or being displaced.

No. I don’t feel like Noah. I don’t feel like the end of the world is coming, either. Mother Nature has always charted her own course with the weather. It’s just that now people are living in the way of her path. We will all come together and find our way out of this horrible catastrophe but it will take a long, long time.