Neighbor Helping Neighbor

I find the idea of not knowing your neighbors foreign.  Most of my neighbors, I have known since I was a wee lass of 25.  I'm 57.  I have 32 years of solid experience of enjoying the benefits of neighbors who can help out in times of need.

It's far too easy to become isolated from our neighbors, particularly when one lives in a "bedroom community".  Work takes us away during the day.  Once home the demands of the household take over.

During my 32 years, we have had several major weather events, though none that I would label as a disaster.  They were inconveniences that could be mitigated by a generator, a chain saw and most importantly the help of our neighbors.

Hurricane Floyd brought down three 100 year old damns.  No neighbor help involved other than being a witness to the destruction of 2 of those dams when Tim, my immediate neighbor, standing at the front door about 7 a.m. and saying, "You are going to want to see this."  "This" was the water in his pond that was pouring over his damn.  His neighbor's damn had already been breached causing his pond to swell.  Water moves quickly and its power to erode an earthen dam is awe inspiring.  When it broke, a wall of water went crashing through the bottom (behind our property).  The next day, I could see a four foot high mark of the muddy tracks that the overflow left behind.

An ice storm in 1998 caused almost the entire electrical grid in New Kent to be knocked out.  The storm descended down on us in the early morning hours of December 23.  I awoke to a large crash.  It was pitch black as the power had been knocked out.  It was not until morning that I saw a massive oak branch had landed on my car.  No damage to my car as my car had been encapsulated in a massive ice cocoon.  It was very cold, and each of us had a measure of comfort that we shared with our neighbors--beer, liqueur, steak and potatoes cooked on a fire grate.  When you are surrounded by 1 inch ice encrusted oak trees, the dangers were ever-present.

Both Isabel and Irene packed a wallop, the latter making our county the number one FEMA disaster area in VA.  Every single road was rendered impassable.  We had to cut our way out of the neighborhood.  But we did it in concert with our neighbors.  During Isabel, one of my neighbors must have experienced a microblast which had about 10 trees on her home (some poking through) and her driveway impassable.  She was caring for her brother who had MS.  It was vital that the nurse be able to get into administer needful things. She made outreach to my daughter and within the hour we had assembled a team of help with two tractors and 4 chainsaws.  Her worry for her brother's care put to rest.

Our inconveniences were potentially life threatening from wind/tree havoc, but not on the scale of having water invade every aspect of your life:  home and travel.  That the message from FEMA is focusing on the neighbor helping neighbor is a reminder of how important our cohesiveness as a community is when there is a need.  Whether it is checking in on an elderly neighborhood, cutting a pathway in/out of one's homestead, providing water/food/comfort or a daring water rescue, these are the things that bind us as a community.

There is so much second guessing about whether Houston should have been evacuated.  Not sure where 4 million people could go much less how they would get there.  But I am sure that whatever misery a disaster metes out, neighbor helping neighbor will provide both a physical and emotional lifeline and for dealing with such epic and tragic events.