Two-fer Tuesday.

Coupla things.

As horrible and devastating as SuperSandy was/is, it is good to remember how much worse it could have been.

• No major buildings collapsed. Nurses had to carry sick babies down nine flights of stairs while pumping air into their tiny lungs, but the building -- and 99.999% of the others -- stayed up. Thank you, building codes and inspectors.
   
• The majority of people heeded the days of warnings and stocked up or evaculated as they were instructed. Thank you, television and radio and internet and organized government, also thank you, common sense.  (A certain NJ mayor is excluded from this thanks.)
   
• Millions of people are without power, but millions more are not. Thank you, ConEd and other utilites for shutting down pre-emptively and for building some redundency into your systems.
  
  
• Those in harm's way were being rescued, even at the height of the storm, by dedicated police and firefighters and EMTs and other emergency personnel. Thank you, all you heroes. And thank you to those folks 150 years ago who decided that such services were needed and organized and funded them. 

Think of it: a 100-year storm hits the most densely populated area of the country, affecting 50 million people, and the death toll is (as of an hour ago) under 50. That is kind of miraculous right there.

And now, some humor found at blackbird's blog. She lives somewhere near NYC, close enough that she commutes to Manhattan by train every day.

 

 

One more thing. Did anyone else see this photo of the sandbags in from of Goldman Sachs Wall Street headquarters and think, Huh, they are protecting their building with bags of money.

Comments

[Jocelyn]

I hadn't seen that Goldman Sachs photo--too funny!

You are very right: for something this big to have hit with such relatively-controlled damage is amazing. I'm very sorry for the loss of life; I'm very happy it wasn't greater.

[Chris]

Yeah, bad, but you're very right - not as bad as it could've been. Whew!

[Ann in NJ]

Thank you, I needed a laugh. I am in NJ with no power for the foreseeable future. I am trying to keep perspective but it is cold and dark and sometimes I need a reminder. I'm finding that one of the hardest things in this situation is to remember that we are not alone in this little island of destruction (my neighborhood has so many trees down you can barely get out). The world goes on. This too shall pass.

[bullwinkle]

Yes, not as bad as it could have been. But - climate change - more to come. Scary stuff.

Thanks for the laughs.