What Cost This Tragedy?

Serendipity is currently my friend today.

I planted vegetables way late. I was cringing. BUT. planted them the day after a big rain. The day after I watered. Yesterday and today we have had three more gentle rains.

I know when my kids were growing up, it seemed sometimes they grew an inch in a week. Considering how tall both ended up, maybe they did, but now, I am looking at vegetables and flowering plants and vines.

With the rains, they all are bigger every day. Really. Wonderfully.

So far the dogs have not lept in and dug them up in the raised bed. This year, I put the short wire fence inside the timbers of the bed, making it a more challenging leap. I also took care to make sure the tomato cages had a tine facing the outside. It's only five days. We'll see.

Last night, we had a mild rain that kept coming through the leaves, tinkling in the birdbath. Early yet, so sleepy calls from some birds in the dark. It was fragrant, musical, comfortable (70s) and wonderful.

I wished then for all those who have gone through horrific storms this week to heal to the sweet, rhythmic drip of the rain, distant and gentle rumble of thunder, and the sweet percussion of leaves brushing in a gentle breeze.

There will be trees again, grass, flowers, even vegetables. Houses will sprout again, businesses regrow.

\When I was a child in New Mexico, I remember the forest fires that destroyed so many acres. For years, it was black ash. Finally scrub oak. Then pinon, and now,50 years later, finally pines are beginning to grow again. It will take another lifetime.

With the tornadoes, times are different. They rebuild more quickly. How is Joplin doing?

I can't remember how many died in Joplin. Can you? My God. 158 deaths, more than 1,100 injured. I googled.

My blog has taken a twist, because I also decided to mention the F4 tornadoes that obliterated so much of Wichita Falls, Tx., April 10, 1979.

I remember that so well. I had just left journalism. I seem to remember there were three tornadoes, only a few miles long, more than a mile wide, F4. I verified all that. What I found eerie is that as I researched, I found costs, devastation photos, economic impact statements. I googled "death toll, 1979 Wichita Falls tornado" but even that didn't get me to the information until the fourth try.

They lost 42, more than 1,000 injured.

I am a little shaken.

So. Apparently we build some better. We have better alerts.

Maybe. Hope so.

I know I'm not a business person. Always have known that. But when I research death tolls for fairly recent events and get the money cost easily and the human deaths only with effort--oh.

Things are worse than I thought.