Journeys 12-4-12 Hurricane Sandy

I opened my kitchen drawer and pulled out my old fashioned hand operated can opener and had to laugh.  Ever since we survived hurricane Hugo while living in Charleston, South Carolina, we’ve sworn never to buy another electric can opener again.  When you live without electricity for 14 days, you learn to appreciate clean drinking water and appliances that work without having to be plugged in.  

Watching folks in New Jersey and New York recover form hurricane Sandy this week, I had to wonder if they’d picked up a good non-electric can opener while they cleaned out the canned goods from the grocery stores.  Without a good can opener, a natural gas stove and/or propane grill, cooking without electricity is nearly impossible.

After Hugo we also learned how big your generator has to be to run a TV or refrigerator.  Those little generators are for a few lights.  You need a monster generator to give you enough juice for a major appliance.  And you smell the fumes from those generators for several hundred feet. 

I also got to thinking about those non-powered weeks so long ago.  Unless you had a gas water heater, you had to go to a lot of effort to take a shower with anything but cold water.  And the national guard imposed a strict curfew after the sun went down.  So night time meetings ground to a halt.

It was so quiet those first few days after the storm.  Then the generators started arriving and it got real noisy real fast.

We also learned that the United Methodist Committee on Relief is known to be one of the first the arrive and one of the last to leave.  We are also known as great relief and community organizers.  

Please keep the victims of Hurricane Sandy in your prayers this week.  The recovery from this storm is going to take a long, long time.  Also be on the look out for special offerings from the victims of the storm (make your checks out to UMCOR US Disaster Response, Advance #3021787).  What we give goes directly to the victims ‘cause the church has already covered the administrative costs.

Grace & Peace,