From the desk of the Editor:
Jeremy Couso
It has been a really long day today.
It started at 4:00a.m. and without a doubt this may have been one of the longest, most insane days ever.
It isn’t even an exaggeration to tell you that when I pepper-sprayed myself in the face while chasing off raccoons this evening, it wasn’t even close to the worst part of my day.
Yeah it was one of those, the kind of awful horrible days we all have every once in a while, where we try and try and nothing seems to go our way.
So, feeling blue and sorry for myself, I finally sat down to start putting together this morning’s WebXtra, and for the first time I had the chance to look at the national news.
Wow. Just wow.
This week had been such a blur that I hadn’t had a chance to look at the national news much. I kept tabs on the election and hurricane Sandy through headlines, but tonight was the first time I’d actually seen what happened to the east coast.
And the devastation was staggering.
My terrible day suddenly paled in comparison. Everything I had worried and stressed and paced about were insignificant when compared to what these people, millions of them, were going through on the other side of our country. What they had lost in an instant all up and down the northeast corridor.
A storm this size is unfathomable even when you are in it, with a strength and power that are immense.
“Nature,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, assessing the damage to his city, “is an awful lot more powerful than we are.”
The satellite picture seems oddly serene when you know that underneath are hundreds of natural disasters all happening at once over half a dozen states. And in those disasters people were dying, and losing their homes.
And Hurricane Sandy did create hundreds of natural disasters… violent storms, flooding, wildfires. Massive destruction. 30 and 40 mile stretches of coastline where homes were simply washed into the sea. It is heartbreaking to see what these people are going through.
Horrible images captured on video, a hundred buildings burned to the ground in the Bronx during the storm. CNN says 50 people dead, massive flooding and outages and families who lost everything when a wall of water and debris leveled their houses.
And not just in New York. Six people died in New Jersey, and seven other states reported fatalities.
Some 8.2 million homes and businesses were dark as trees toppled by the winds took down power lines. And everywhere that Sandy went she left a path of destroyed homes. Families who had no chance to fight back, and suddenly lost everything to the storm.
They are having a really bad day. We need to help any way we can.
I’ve included a link to the Red Cross here in the article, but there are a lot of different good organizations and charities out there, and I encourage you to find some way to contribute to the folks in the northeast.
Whether through Red Cross, or your local church, or however you can do it, just make sure that you help if you can, because they really do need our help back there.
If you would like to help people affected by hurricane Sandy you can make a donation to support American Red Cross Disaster Relief by visiting http://www.redcross.org/support, calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation.
Contributions may also be sent to our Susanville Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, DC 20013.
