March came in like a lion, and left … if not like a lion, all fierce roars and fangs, then not exactly like a lamb, either – maybe a foul-tempered wild sheep, skittish, with a mean look it its eye.
Only days into spring, we have seen everything from wintery storms – snow, sheets of ice and high winds – to occasional teasing hints of what summer might bring. Those April showers? More like icy blasts from a thousand fire hoses.
At a time of year when thoughts are supposed to be turning to balmy breezes and gardens bursting with blossoms, we have been focused on chasing down airborne recycling bins and assessing flood and ice storm damage.
During most seasons of the year, we, who are fortunate enough to live in one of the most stable parts of the world, environmentally speaking, remain silent. Not in spring. The season is always a roller-coaster ride of wild weather, and this year’s ride has been more challenging than usual. And it has barely begun.
We may nod wisely and make comments about global climate change, La Niña, or some mysterious comet coming perilously close to our planet. We may shrug off the weather as being nowhere near as nasty as storms we remember from decades past.
The option, as the saying goes, is to “hope for the best and prepare for the worst.” We have had a reminder or three that howling winds and ice can wreak havoc on our electricity; that intense rainfall events mean flooding, no matter what time of year it is; and that lightning can and does strike twice in the same place (although once is usually enough).
A bit of preparation can make the difference between panicking in the dark, and coping effectively with whatever weather events Mother Nature throws our way – and she seems to have no end of nasty surprises this spring.
It often takes a dramatic event to catch our attention – fears of civilization as we knew it ending with Y2K, the giant ice storm of 1998, or the great blackout of 2003.
We paid attention to the experts who advised us on what to keep in our home emergency kits – for a while after each of these events. After a year or two, the carefully packed plastic tub in the front closet would get relegated to a place behind the camping gear in the garage, its contents depleted – spare flashlight batteries gone to power some random toy or game, flashlights themselves in the kitchen junk drawer, the first aid kit emptied of everything but a couple of rolls of gauze, the tinned food and energy bars eaten or discarded, the bottled water consumed, the stash of money in small denominations used for whatever.
Perhaps the recent wild weather has led some of us to haul out the emergency bin and see if there is anything in it that is still usable, with maybe an eye to topping it up.
If we need advice on what to put in it, the local municipal office has plenty of information. Emergency Preparedness Week is May 4-10 – there will be reminders about the need to prepare for emergencies before they happen. It is a bit late to be thinking about flashlights when the lights are out and there is a tree in your front room.
The fact is, we are truly blessed to live where we do. It gets hot in summer but not horribly so. It gets cold in winter but again, not horribly so. We do not live in the shadow of a not-quite-inactive volcano; we get very few hurricanes; blizzards around here are rare; and the local geology makes earthquakes unlikely.
Still, we have our challenges – tornadoes are not as rare around here as we would like them to be, and electrical storms happen regularly. Emergencies happen.
People who are prepared, allow more emergency resources to be devoted to those who truly need help. In an emergency, most of us would prefer to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
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Pauline Kerr is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with Midwestern Newspapers. She can be reached at pkerr@midwesternnewspapers.com
