Katey Lauer, formerly the coordinator of the Alliance for Appalachia, discusses the aftermath of the floods in West Virginia in late June. She sees a resilience and kindness in the human interactions of hard-hit counties as communities begin to rebuild. Her essay—Making Sense of Crisis: The West Virginia Floods—first appeared on the Front Porch Blog of the eco-activist group, Appalachian Voices:
This might be an article where I tell you how devastating the flood has been. Where I tell you that the flood waters are not water at all. That they are sewage and mud and oil. That they are bits of plastic and metal. I might tell you that it’s four days into flood relief and I can’t get the smell out of my nose or off my skin.
And I might explain how I can’t shake the worst of the stories: how I sat with a grandmother who told me how she climbed to the top of a kitchen stool late Thursday night while the debris rose higher and higher around her ankles then knees then waist.
How I heard about a woman alone in her home in a wheelchair, waters rising up to her neck while her dogs piled onto her lap — all of them screaming. How her family heard her from outside but couldn’t get in.
I might tell you about the kind young man in the town where 17 people died. How he pointed out the mountain where he fled with his mother just after showing me the water line on the carport outside, well above our heads.
But the floods aren’t just about that.
Because this might also be an article about strength through hardship. About that phrase I see on fast food boards and church bulletins: “West Virginia Strong.” And I could tell you how my guess is that that sign is about the families on 5th Street in Rainelle, about the cheerleaders serving up soup beans and cornbread in the Kroger parking lot to anyone who’s hungry, about the volunteers sorting a pile of clothing 20 feet high in an Elkview gym, about the women running the volunteer check point in Clendenin. I could tell you about everyday heroes, but the floods aren’t just about that either.
Because this article could be about issues: About our failing infrastructure. About climate change. About poverty. About how working-class, rural America is so unseen by the rest of our nation. I could say that.
But then there’s also the way that strangers come together in these moments of crisis. How I hauled heavy, putrid carpet with a dear old friend and a man I’d never met. How I piled water-logged drywall on a pile of building refuse with a man from Florida. How a woman stopped us on the street to give us a warm meal — a woman whose name I didn’t know and who I’d never see again.
Then I could tell you about the ugly parts, about people fighting in sadness in the streets. About that wits-end sort of withdrawal on the face of an older woman. I could say how I wonder where these tons of waste will be shipped and guess that it’s other poor communities that will deal with this new burden. I could tell you about the national guardsman, eyeing me for too long in a shirt tight with the damp.
But the thing that feels closest to the truth is that there is not one story here. In times of crisis, we can look for saviors and goodwill, we look for peeks at what’s best in the human spirit. We can look for a way to make sense of it — to give it a purpose. We can look for the revelation. If you have been touched by this crisis, my guess is you might well have found some of that. But you have likely also found more. I know I have. If these floods have taught me anything, it’s that crisis is not tidy. It is more threads than fabric.
What I mean is that crisis does not make us super-human; it makes us more human. The floods that have washed away homes and possessions and loved ones have also washed away pretense. And at the end of the day, here we are, neighbors and strangers, ankle deep in receding waters, doing our best — in our beauty and our faults — to reconstitute the world.
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At Daily Kos on this date in 2009—The Party That Pretends to Say No:
It turns out that the one thing Republicans thought they were good at - "No!" - they can't get right. Congressional Quarterly has taken a mid-year look at voting patterns on the Hill, and if one thing is clear, a heck of a lot of GOPers seem to love doing exactly what Obama asks. In the House, forty-four Republicans (fully a quarter of their caucus) have voted in support of measures where the President has "clearly indicated his preferences" at least 50% of the time. This includes hardcore conservatives like Vern Buchanan and Adam Putnam. By contrast, not a single Dem even hit the 40% mark last year when Bush was still in the White House.
The Senate side is even more remarkable. Thanks in part to the GOP's refusal to put up much of a fight on Obama's nominees (despite a whole lot of bluster and ugly, antidemocratic holds), fully thirty-two out of the mere 40 Republicans in the Senate have backed the Obama agenda at least half the time. Even serious mouth-breathers like Jeff Sessions and Saxby Chambliss are on this list.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show, we’re once again working under the cloud of an unbelievable police shooting. The Trumps continue to pile awful on top of awful. Paul Ryan can’t deliver, and the Freedom Caucus grace period is over. So, why not perpetuate Eghazi? UT profs sue over campus carry.
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