After the blizzard
11/05/15 04:26
I spent a lot of time and energy agonizing over the decision about whether or not to cancel church yesterday. After consulting with the moderator of the church, the decision was made to cancel. I kept having second thoughts all day long. After all, I could have gotten in to church. On the other hand, the worst of the storm was about the same time as church and our congregation has lots of older members who should have been staying inside. Most folks that I talked with thought that it was a wise decision to cancel.
My worries, however, weren’t the only weather worries of the day. Across the state, south of Mitchell, a tornado caused a lot of damage at Delmont. There were reports of three people who were injured, but no deaths were reported. The tornado struck at about 10:45 a.m. With the time zone change, that’s during the same hour that our congregation usually gathers for worship. The town’s Lutheran church and the town’s new fire hall were heavily damaged along with about a third of the homes in the town. By late afternoon the South Dakota Emergency Management Office was advising people to evacuate the area as there was no water, electricity or phone service available.
That wasn’t all for unusual spring weather around the country. Tropical storm Ana made landfall Sunday morning in South Carolina. As tropical storms go, Ana wasn’t all that big. There were winds that reached nearly 40 mph and 2 to 4 inches in rain in some places along the Atlantic coast. But named storms before the official launch of the hurricane season on June 1 are rare. There are a couple of other storms that have been earlier, including a 1952 storm that struck Florida in February. Still, the storm was only the third storm to land that early since official records have been kept.
Out in the Pacific, the storm season is raging. A category 5 super storm hit the Philippines yesterday. May is considered to be early for such storms there as well. Noel, the storm that struck the Philippines, was the third strongest typhoon for so early in the year and it is already the second category 5 storm this year, the fifth named storm in the Pacific.
Folks who have lived in the hills for a while can remember other spring blizzards, some in May, but we still would call this much snow a bit unusual for us at this time of the year. We weren’t the only ones to get snow. There was snow along the front range in Colorado. In 24-hours from Saturday into Sunday, Colorado Springs was under 5 different types of National Weather Service alerts including, a tornado watch, flash flood warning, and a blizzard warning.
Back home in the hills, it is strange that our winter was much dryer than normal, with less snow that usual given that we set the record last fall for our city’s earliest snowfall on record (September 11) and yesterday’s blizzard wasn’t the latest, it was relatively late for us. We’ve set a few records in the past couple of years with the record storm for the amount of snow in April of 2013 and that year’s October storm that caused a lot of tree damage and extended power outages.
There is plenty of weather for folks to talk about and folks like to talk about the weather.
Meanwhile, our friends in Costa Rica keep looking to Turrialba Volcano. Since last October, the mountain has been erupting with clouds of ash on a regular basis. The airport in San Juan has been shut down three times since March. The ash from the volcano has been spreading around the area. The volcano is also erupting lava. Volcanologists with the Costa Rican National Volcanological Observatory expect the eruptions to gradually increase over the next few months. By fall the volcano will be erupting on a near weekly basis. So far the ash hasn’t caused major health concerns in the city of San Jose, but a small change in the weather and the ash could cause serious health concerns. Add a little rain and the acid rain could be enough to contaminate rivers and kill corps. Respiratory problems are common when people inhale the ash. More than half of the people of Costa Rica live in San Jose. San Jose is also the location of the majority of the country’s computers and other sensitive electronic equipment which are vulnerable to negative effects of the ash as well.
Back in the 1960’s Irazu Volcano regularly showered San Jose with ash. The old timers know that volcanoes and their effects are part of living in the country.
When one considers the powerful forces at play in the natural order of the world, we begin to understand that we are relatively small and not very powerful in the face of the giant forces of nature. There are many things that are beyond our control. While we can prepare for natural events and plan to keep ourselves safe, there are many things that are beyond our control. And sometimes our plans and ideas become disrupted.
Maybe there was a lesson for me in yesterday’s blizzard. I’ll keep second guessing my decision for a long time and wondering whether or not I did the right thing. I’ll probably be less likely to cancel in the future. It wouldn’t have made a very big difference in the scheme of things. A few people would have come to worship. We would have been short on numbers and the choir probably wouldn’t have had enough voices to sing. The church school would have been empty. But the real lesson is that it isn’t about me. In the scheme of things we need to learn that we can’t control all of the variables in this world. We aren’t in charge of the great forces that shape our lives. Our role is to look at the world with awe and appreciation and wonder.
In this country, you learn to get up on the morning after the storm and go back to work. And you learn to get prepared for the next storm. Storms will come and go and in the midst of them our lives continue to be filled with meaning.
Besides, you have to admit, it is kind of pretty to look out at all that fresh snow. Enjoy it! It won’t last.
My worries, however, weren’t the only weather worries of the day. Across the state, south of Mitchell, a tornado caused a lot of damage at Delmont. There were reports of three people who were injured, but no deaths were reported. The tornado struck at about 10:45 a.m. With the time zone change, that’s during the same hour that our congregation usually gathers for worship. The town’s Lutheran church and the town’s new fire hall were heavily damaged along with about a third of the homes in the town. By late afternoon the South Dakota Emergency Management Office was advising people to evacuate the area as there was no water, electricity or phone service available.
That wasn’t all for unusual spring weather around the country. Tropical storm Ana made landfall Sunday morning in South Carolina. As tropical storms go, Ana wasn’t all that big. There were winds that reached nearly 40 mph and 2 to 4 inches in rain in some places along the Atlantic coast. But named storms before the official launch of the hurricane season on June 1 are rare. There are a couple of other storms that have been earlier, including a 1952 storm that struck Florida in February. Still, the storm was only the third storm to land that early since official records have been kept.
Out in the Pacific, the storm season is raging. A category 5 super storm hit the Philippines yesterday. May is considered to be early for such storms there as well. Noel, the storm that struck the Philippines, was the third strongest typhoon for so early in the year and it is already the second category 5 storm this year, the fifth named storm in the Pacific.
Folks who have lived in the hills for a while can remember other spring blizzards, some in May, but we still would call this much snow a bit unusual for us at this time of the year. We weren’t the only ones to get snow. There was snow along the front range in Colorado. In 24-hours from Saturday into Sunday, Colorado Springs was under 5 different types of National Weather Service alerts including, a tornado watch, flash flood warning, and a blizzard warning.
Back home in the hills, it is strange that our winter was much dryer than normal, with less snow that usual given that we set the record last fall for our city’s earliest snowfall on record (September 11) and yesterday’s blizzard wasn’t the latest, it was relatively late for us. We’ve set a few records in the past couple of years with the record storm for the amount of snow in April of 2013 and that year’s October storm that caused a lot of tree damage and extended power outages.
There is plenty of weather for folks to talk about and folks like to talk about the weather.
Meanwhile, our friends in Costa Rica keep looking to Turrialba Volcano. Since last October, the mountain has been erupting with clouds of ash on a regular basis. The airport in San Juan has been shut down three times since March. The ash from the volcano has been spreading around the area. The volcano is also erupting lava. Volcanologists with the Costa Rican National Volcanological Observatory expect the eruptions to gradually increase over the next few months. By fall the volcano will be erupting on a near weekly basis. So far the ash hasn’t caused major health concerns in the city of San Jose, but a small change in the weather and the ash could cause serious health concerns. Add a little rain and the acid rain could be enough to contaminate rivers and kill corps. Respiratory problems are common when people inhale the ash. More than half of the people of Costa Rica live in San Jose. San Jose is also the location of the majority of the country’s computers and other sensitive electronic equipment which are vulnerable to negative effects of the ash as well.
Back in the 1960’s Irazu Volcano regularly showered San Jose with ash. The old timers know that volcanoes and their effects are part of living in the country.
When one considers the powerful forces at play in the natural order of the world, we begin to understand that we are relatively small and not very powerful in the face of the giant forces of nature. There are many things that are beyond our control. While we can prepare for natural events and plan to keep ourselves safe, there are many things that are beyond our control. And sometimes our plans and ideas become disrupted.
Maybe there was a lesson for me in yesterday’s blizzard. I’ll keep second guessing my decision for a long time and wondering whether or not I did the right thing. I’ll probably be less likely to cancel in the future. It wouldn’t have made a very big difference in the scheme of things. A few people would have come to worship. We would have been short on numbers and the choir probably wouldn’t have had enough voices to sing. The church school would have been empty. But the real lesson is that it isn’t about me. In the scheme of things we need to learn that we can’t control all of the variables in this world. We aren’t in charge of the great forces that shape our lives. Our role is to look at the world with awe and appreciation and wonder.
In this country, you learn to get up on the morning after the storm and go back to work. And you learn to get prepared for the next storm. Storms will come and go and in the midst of them our lives continue to be filled with meaning.
Besides, you have to admit, it is kind of pretty to look out at all that fresh snow. Enjoy it! It won’t last.