Atlantic Hurricane Season Starts Sunday - Lessons to Remember
May 30th, 2008 at 4:04 pm by Dee O'Neil Andrews
This Sunday will begin our third Atlantic hurricane season since Katrina (August 29, 2005). It will last until December 1.
The past two summers and falls along the Gulf Coast have been very quiet. I hope it stays that way. Once in a lifetime was too much of what Katrina involved.
The local (New Orleans) television and radio stations have been issuing a lot of warnings already for people to get prepared, if they haven't already done so. Most haven't. And many around New Orleans insist that they will refuse to evacuate, even if mandated, and they will be. Leaders in New Orleans and surrounding area towns and cities along both the south side and north side of Lake Ponchartrain have made it clear that things will be different next time in when and how evacuation orders will be given and that everyone will be required to leave, but that's never worked before, and I doubt that it will again.
Many of you started reading Finding Direction as I wrote about what all we went through before, during and for a long time after Katrina. If you haven't read those posts, you might want to do so now or sometime soon. I began writing about Katrina on August 27, 2005 as Tom and I were leaving Slidell to start north in escaping the coming fury and I wrote for weeks and weeks after that about it.
The easiest way to read some or all of the posts is to go to my Archives over on the right side of my page and start with August 2005 (or here). If you'll read from the August 27, 2005 post forward through the September 2005 Archives (in the Archives, you have to read the posts in reverse chronological order - the earliest posts are last in the series of posts for the entire month) it will give you a pretty clear idea of what life was like through that tumultuous time and how we coped with it, both on a family basis and as Christians all along the Gulf Coast, including both in Mandeville, Louisiana where I was a church member at Tammany Oaks church of Christ then all the way over to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where John Dobbs was (and still is part of the time).
Reading John's archives from that time forward would be a good exercise, as well. God certainly used those events through the efforts of John and many other Christians to bring glory to His name all along the Mississippi Gulf Coast and is still using them today, nearly three years afterward. In light of the terrible personal tragedy in John's life and the life of his wife, Maggy, and family last week in the death of their only son, John Robert, who was 18, we can only pray that God will bring John and Maggy to a place where they can see the glory of God that shone through John Robert and that continues to shine to reach out to others.
Now, looking back at those days and in reading my posts of then, it's as if it happened to someone else. I'm glad that memory can erase some of the worst of such times and leave only the good. If we could but be that way about everything that happens to us in this life I think we would all be better off. But, some things take many, many years to overcome and so we must to patient and persevere until such time as we can see more clearly how God will work those things out for us.
But, never let us forget the lessons, so that we may be wise. After all, as I wrote in my post on August 9, 2005, "What Is Our Share Anyway?," some 2 1/2 weeks before anyone ever heard of or thought of Katrina, King Solomon said that "time and chance" happen to us all in this life. If we're not strong Christians, already, we may not be ready for "time and chance" when they do come.
I pray that we all will be.
May God richly bless each of you who come by here to read this post today and over the weekend! Dee
Dee,
Thanks for this wonderful post.
I hope this year God will protect the coasts.
I hope and pray that there will be no major hurricanes in the gulf and east Coast.
Gas is high enough as it is and we don’t want it going up because of a major hurricane.
You can’t appreciate the magnitude of something like Katrina unless you have lived through it — and I am glad for you that time has weakened some of the terror, hurt and pain of those times.
I know that being there 6 months after the storm and seeing the many remaining evidences of the force and power of Katrina seemed surrealistic and I couldn’t really begin to understand what it must have been like —
I pray that it was once in a lifetime for the people of the Coast while knowing that we will see the fury of nature in many other places.
God wanted better from his universe but it seems that we (humanity) have been poor stewards and have created environmental disturbances and also placed ourselves in harm’s way.
But God also wants us to be able to see past the tragedies and terror of these physical situations and find his peace through Jesus in any and all circumstances — more than anything that is the paryer that I have for those who have or will experience these horrific storms and other physical disasters.
God Bless
Charlie
Hey Dee,
Thanks for the comment! I DO remember your 2006 vacation and your time in ICU, and I hate to say it, but I guess Tom was right! I hope he didn’t use that as an opportunity to say “i told ya so!”
San Francisco can be a really busy vacation, which it was for us trying to cram everything in to 2 1/2 days, but you can really make it what you want and have a much slower paced trip. It is very beautiful, and I would definitely recommend going if you are able to! I don’t have any health problems, but I do know that even I was able to breathe better there and had NO problems with allergies until the minute we were back in the airport parking lot in Denver.
Hope you have a blessed week!
Leah
We lived in Florida (Orlando) back in the early 60’s and then on the east coast in the mid-80’s until moving away in 1993. I never looked forward to hurricane season. When Andrew tore up north Miami area, it was decided that if a hurricane hit the Space Coast area, all police personnel were required to remain in the area for emergency needs, including the chaplain! Fortunately, that never happened, but I don’t envy anyone in the path of a hurricane.
Dee - Thanks for dropping by and for your kind comments - I’m praying that you have a blessed week.
Charlie
I have a niece who lives in West Palm Beach. She and her family are some of the ones who “hunker down” and wait it out. So far, they’ve come through relatively unscathed. But that doesn’t stop me from putting in my two cents’ worth every chance I get about NOT doing that! My prayers for all along the coasts!
I will definitely be going to your archives. Thanks for sharing.