Natural disasters are meant to cause destruction and to break thing apart.
Sometimes they end up bringing people together. In September of 1996 Hurricane
Fran swept through my town with the power of mother nature behind it all the
way. Fran brought winds that reached speeds of close to 100 miles per hour,
tornadoes, and golf ball sized hail. Needless to say that this storm did a lot
of damage. All over the town people did not have any power, could not use their
water. I remember how dark everything was without any light. I was scared but
also kind of excited because I had never been in a hurricane before. The thing
that scared me the most was the possibility that I would not have a house when I
woke the next morning. As my family sat in the living room everything was silent
except for the loud claps of thunder and the howling wind. I peered out of the
window looking at the clouds speeding across the sky frequently being lit up by
the bright flashes of lightning. As I looked out the window I noticed that a 110
foot tall poplar tree was slowly making its way down to my roof. I told my
step-dad about the tree and he decided it would be best if we did not stay in
the house. So we made a break for our cars and drove to my step-dad’s shop
which was only two miles away. The drive did not take two minutes, it seemed
more like ten because of the rain and wind we encountered while on the road.
That night I could not sleep. I stayed up and watched the storm devastate the
town. I never in my life have ever seen such an example of raw natural power.
The storm seemed like a giant hand that just picked up objects and threw them
across the street, and took trees and bent them like they were no more than wet
pasta noodles. Well that next morning is one I will not forget. I walked out the
building I was in to the sight of downed trees and power lines. I even saw cars
that were either spun around some how or just plain moved from where they were
the night before. As I started the drive back to my house I decided to take the
long way so I could the damage the storm had caused. As I drove down highway 98
all I could see were snapped trees, dangling telephone lines and debris laying
all over the road. As I turned into my neighborhood it was to my amazement that
the damage wasn’t that bad. As I kept driving it seemed that every other
street looked like it got hit harder. Eventually I got to my street, and without
a doubt it was the worse one out of the entire neighborhood. There was no
pavement to be seen on my street because it was covered in a blanket of leaves
and wood. I just sat in my truck at the stop sign and looked out my window in
shock with my jaw in my lap. I turned onto the street and pulled up to my house.
This time my jaw hit the floor. The only part of my house I could see was the
roof, which had a tree laying on top of it. The rest of my yard had been covered
in downed trees laying on top of each other. From what I heard a tornado jumped
around my neighborhood but it seemed to like my part a little bit more. After
the shock of what happened started to go away, my family and I started the clean
up project. We gathered some axes and a chainsaw to cut the trees away from my
house. After about a couple of hours or so we looked at the mess once again and
it seemed as if we didn't cut one piece of wood. That is when it happened.
People from my street started walking up with every ax and chainsaw there was
available. We looked like a bunch of lumberjacks going to town on a forest. We
worked on that wood through the whole morning and almost the whole afternoon.
Once all the trees were cut and moved in pile to be picked up everyone stood in
the road to see the accomplishment we achieved working as one. Strangely enough
we still couldn't see the house because the pile of debris was so high. That was
no matter the yard looked great under the circumstances. I never thought that my
street would ever become one group and put such a massive effort to help someone
else. Something like that does not happen often. Just for to have happened one
time was enough to make me think that naturally people are good inside.
Sometimes it just takes a natural disaster to bring it out in the open.