a bit of this & a bit of that: June 2013

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

[be grateful for what you have because...]

…you never know when it'll all be taken away from you.

Only two hours south from us, in Calgary, Highriver, Canmore and surrounding areas, a flooding disaster of an enormous magnitude happened just recently. There are still people who can’t go home as some areas are too dangerous and there is no infrastructure left. Mind you, in many places there won’t be much going back to anyways once they’ve declared it safe to return home. Cleaning up and rebuilding will take a long time. Billions of dollars of damage has been done and the economy is taking a hard hit too.

It has been shocking to watch the aftermath of this terrible rain storm. Once again we have been reminded of the power of nature and the damage it can do. The only comfort in this situation is all the people who are willing to help out those who need help.

No one wants to think that this will ever happen to them personally. It’s always someone else this happens to, right? Well, I bet the people in Calgary never thought that they’d have to go through something like this either. We usually worry more about drought than flooding. I'm always telling everyone how it hardly ever rains here. It’s not a happy thing to talk about disasters but every once in a while it’s good to remember that things can happen anywhere and it helps bring peace of mind if you are as prepared as you can be for disasters.

It would be wise for everyone to have a 72-hour emergency kit. Water, food, first aid items, anything that you might need for a few days if a disaster strikes. Often it takes relief agencies few days to start getting the help to those in need. There is lots of info online how to prepare for disasters. Just do a search for "72-hour emergency preparedness".

Also, let's remember to keep donating money to help those who are going through something terrible like this. To think that this horrible disaster is not even the worst one that is happening out there to people!

Click here to read my other blog posts about being prepared. (Includes links to emergency info and how to donate money to those in need)

Even the Calgary Zoo (one of our favorite summer attractions) was affected terribly by the flood. There just wasn't enough time to evacuate the animals. Some died. This hippo was swimming in muddy water and I can't even imagine the work that will have to happen to clean everything up and get him safely back in his clean tank.