Living with the Emergency

It is an interesting place to be, this living inside an extended emergency alert.  One tends to become consumed by the whole thing. 
It's easy to forget that in other places in the world, people are getting on with their daily lives, buying groceries, going to films, shopping.  Here, these things are on hold as we deal with  massive clean up, continued power outages, closed roads, detours and general controlled chaos. 

It's the mud - the mud left behind on everything.

 I don't have any pretty pictures to share today, just thoughts.  The pictures aren't pretty and they are all over our news - front yards covered with piles of dripping, ruined furniture, people, muddy and weary, wearing facemasks, taking their houses apart to see what can be salvaged.

 Everywhere there is the sound of sump pump motors, and big drain hoses snaking out into the streets spewing water into the storm drains out of houses, car parks, and flooded streets, leaving this gooey, smelly mud behind which then has to be shoveled out by hand.  It is a heartbreaking, backbreaking process for the people doing it.

We don't say "how are you"  We say "Are you dry".  And we hope the answer is yes.

There are big lineups of trucks and trailers going to the city dumps dropping off loads of destroyed household stuff - furniture, Christmas decorations, books,  memorabilia - the stuff of a life in a house. 
Some people have lost just about everything and are existing in emergency shelters or with friends or family.

There is a frantic need to check the damage, to assess, to decide what to do next.
There is a grimness underlying the cheerfulness of the blue skies and warm temperatures here.
And so, the world goes on, but we don't, lost in our emergency, worrying, trying to reach out to people whose houses didn't make it.

We'll make it through this of course and this particular flood will be talked about for years, but it's going to take some time this time.

So, my favourite little yarn store - Stash Needle Arts Lounge, owned by Veronica Murphy - has decided to throw a party on Saturday afternoon for flood victims in the knitting community who lost their yarns, their needles, - their precious "stash".   Because knitting is therapy.   How cool is that?  Inglewood district in South East Calgary was evacuated, but the power is back on, and so, Veronica says, is the coffee.   She is inviting people who still have a yarn stash, to bring a ball or two to share with those whose stash was destroyed.  You can check this out here

And the Calgary Horticultural Society is tapping members for plants, and manual labour to help those gardeners whose gardens were destroyed in the flooding.  You can read more about that here

Everywhere people are looking for ways to help.  It helps combat the helplessness we all feel after being kicked to the curb by Mother Nature.
So, forgive me if I forget about the news going on in the world - my own little news world is all consuming right now.