Our most recent weeks have been inundated with life changes on communities in Texas, Louisiana, Florida, the islands of the Florida coast and Mexico. Hurricanes are beginning to break records in both size and might.
Triaging damage resulting from Hurricane Harvey in Houston and Hurricane Irma in Haiti, the Bahamas and Florida is a reality check that long-term disruption in our communities can occur, multiple times, on any given year; flooding recovery, disruption of urban waste water, loss of drinking water supplies, no operating energy grid and lack of the basic operation in our communities. A planner, Dr. Laurie Johnson, once said that until the “Golden Triangle” is reestablished (house, job and schools), people can’t go home. Rebuilding takes time. Society needs a commitment to the long-term recovery of a damaged community. The time to solve this type of problem takes months and years.
Think about what commitment to each other looks like in your area when help is needed at more distant communities. Commitment to each other through long-term hardships is a picture that speaks a thousand words.