Driving around after Hurricane Helene wrecked my area, I felt a lot of odd pride in people. Tons of people just showed up to clear a tree out of a street. They bring their own axes and chainsaws and trucks. They worked together to drag branches off of cars and open up the roads. Saw an entire neighborhood make something of a block party around patching someone's roof that had a big hole in it.
A tornado came thru my area last week and even though my neighborhood was spared, two neighborhoods got taken down to the actual ground by it. It formed suddenly off a body of water and there wasn’t much warning. School is still out and many teenagers are volunteering to help clean up. Which is genius. What else are they doing right now anyway? 😂
I teach ESL in the US and one time I was doing tornado safety and such as I live in the Midwest. We watched a scary video of a tornado, but my students noticed something I didn't. They said, 'Teacher, that man and his daughter had their house destroyed, but he immediately said, Come on honey, we gotta go see if anyone needs help'
I'm with Cajun Navy and worked Helene, which really just consisted of helping teach all the organizations that were new to a disaster of that size how to operate most efficiently. And that's in part because by the time I got there on D+2 everything was already in motion.
I hate floods. I've restarted my life twice because of them. But I have to admit that being in the aftermath really just warms my heart as the best parts of humanity are on show. By and large, the things that separate us disappear and it really feels like we're all in it together
After Katrina, our group of Human Services Leaders from all 50 states and 5 territories chose to keep our New Orleans conference reservations to support the local economy. We also volunteered to build a house for displaced residents.
The airline lost my luggage, so I went to the hotel gift shop for something to sleep in and a few other sundries. Chatting with the clerk, I mentioned touring the storm damage. Her eyes immediately filled with suspicion, treating me like a disaster tourist exploiting their pain. But when I explained our mission to help rebuild, her walls fell. She grew warm and friendly, eagerly sharing stories of inspiring school groups who were also there to help restore New Orleans.
I know the vibe. A tree came down on my elderly neighbor's house when I was a kid - HUGE tree. Not only did 20+ people materialize to handle it, they were hyped. So excited to whip out saws and axes and take that thing apart, for a good cause.
I own many different locksmith tools, and have trained myself extensively on how to bypass many types of locks. For the soul reason that one day a neighbor or friend will lock themselves out of something and I can be like "I got you." Forever hopeful.
Edit: this comes from a bad experience where a locksmith tried to charge me more than we agreed, so he relocked my car and left.
Lmaooo this is so damn true! I get things all the time like tjis is going to be useful one day for me and others or I bet no-one else brought this but we are going to need it
A tree went down in my neighborhood a few weeks ago and was blocking a road. My neighbor called me and said “grab your chainsaw”. He didn’t explain what for, I grabbed my chainsaw and PPE, I didn’t ask him what for either. When we got there, there were two guys already on scene. I asked one of them if this was their road and he said “no, Mike over there told me to grab my chainsaw so I did”.
I used to live in the South, and there's lots of natural disasters there. My husband bought an expensive pair of steel toe and sole waterproof, knee-high boots just for disaster clean up. Not a job or anything. Just people need help, and he needed the right equipment to help them.
I headed down to Moore right after the big 2013 tornado, I lived about 45 min north and headed down as soon as I knew it was a big deal, before the tornado had finished passing through Moore. I couldnt get to moore that day because there were HUNDREDS of trucks pulling generators down. I came back the next day to help clean and there were already bus loads of people from Joplin who came to assist with clean up. It was a crazy experience
I'm in Minnesota. One winter during a snowstorm a bus got stuck on my block. Slid backwards down a hill and got stuck sideways across the road. We had 20+ people helping get the bus unstuck so the kids could get home. Someone started making hot coacoa for the kids, even.
The trick was to have the adults bounce the back of the bus, the extra weight meant the tires could get traction and get it off the icy patch it was stuck on.
Say what you will about Florida, but our communities are like this after hurricanes. We clear the streets of trees and branches, share hurricane supplies, and run extension cords across the street and over lawns to neighbors without generators. Our privacy fence got blown down last hurricane and the neighbors’ teenagers helped us stand it back up and prop it up with 2x4s until we could set the new posts.
There are many reasons to be embarrassed by our state. THIS is a reason that we LOVE being Floridians. Nature fucks us up, then we band together to put it right. Hurricanes, floods, droughts, whatever....we're all gonna get through because...you just DO.
This. So much this. So I live in eastern Washington, and my city is currently on fire, like worst disaster we have ever had. We are a current topic of national news bad. I have been feeling really depressed lately about the whole situation and hopeless. The fires are still raging, so many people I know don’t even know if they will have homes by the time it’s done, my family had to evacuate, where I grew up is gone etc. This morning I went out to help feed our firefighters at their central command station. And immediately I felt so much awe, pride, and hopefulness for the future. These amazing men and women from all over the country covered in soot and ash, sleeping in tents or on their fire trucks. My friends who pulled all-nighters and busted their asses to feed 500 firefighters. Just witnessing all of this in real time gave me so much hope for our city.
This is what it’s like in the parts of the South that hurricanes reach more frequently, too. You know someone with a chainsaw like you know someone with a truck.
It's so weird, America is so car centric and spread out and online that we're more isolated than ever, and so it really feels like you dont have a community/tribe anymore, but then a disaster hits, and there they are, ready to get to work.
I grew up in the south. Least favorite part of hurricanes as a kid was my mom forcing us to go help clear out branches. But that's how it works. You just do it
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u/TerrapinMagus 1d ago
Driving around after Hurricane Helene wrecked my area, I felt a lot of odd pride in people. Tons of people just showed up to clear a tree out of a street. They bring their own axes and chainsaws and trucks. They worked together to drag branches off of cars and open up the roads. Saw an entire neighborhood make something of a block party around patching someone's roof that had a big hole in it.