Hopefully, I am one of the many whose minds are not on politics today.
As you well know (unless you have been living under a rock this week) the community of Moore, Oklahoma was hit by a devastating tornado yesterday. Moore is located approximately 10 miles south of Oklahoma City. This same community was hit by an almost as devastating tornado 14 years ago in May. From all of the reports that I have read, this tornado, at least in terms of property damage and loss of lives, was more destructive than the one that happened on May 3, 1999.
Currently, the official death toll has reached 24, with at least 7 of those (and probably more) being children. One particular elementary school was virtually wiped off the map and several children there ended up stuck underneath some debris or unfortunately drowned while in the basement seeking shelter from the storm.
This one hit much closer to home for me than the last one. A lot of that has to do with the fact that in 1999, I was nowhere near Oklahoma. I was living on an Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi at the time. It also hits a little closer to home for me because a really good friend of mine lives in Moore. As of this writing, I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to reach him to see if he is okay or not. From what I have been able to gather, his neighborhood was not in the path of where the tornado actually hit but has sustained some power outages so I’m hoping that he is okay.
The one thing that I can’t seem to get out of my head is the image of those children that lost their lives and the image of their families that were left powerless to help their children in any way. I could not imagine not being able to do anything at all while my kids are in harm’s way. I can’t imagine the heartbreak that those parents are going through right now. I suspect that those parents are beating themselves up imagining what they could have done differently in order to keep their children alive. I heart truly breaks for those parents and for those poor children whose lives were needlessly cut short by mother nature.
So politics is definitely not on my mind today so don’t expect to see any politics posts here or on my Facebook page, or on my Twitter page. There is nobody on either side of politics that can blame the other for this tragedy. And there shouldn’t be. This was just simply a tragic, natural event that nobody could have stopped or prepared for.
My thoughts go out to the people of Moore today.
Otter Limits 