Thank you God for the many hearts that have been and continue to be led to help. Thank you for the community lifting each other up and sharing the blessings that they have in life. Thank you for the relationships formed and the lives connected. Written by Vincent DeGeorge and shared among the many who participated and echoed his voice.
Reflections after 1 week of Flood Relief:
Losing, Building, People, & Ending...
1) Oh my goodness how much can be wiped away, in one night... Whether we saw the pictures, or saw the cars in the creek, or saw the roads, or fences, or houses & the basements - we all saw in our own way how much can be lost, in a 'flash.' I won't recap it, because I can't. It's appropriate for that to make us stop in our tracks, to need to sit down, to need a minute to process, to ask "how did it?..." To ask ourselves "what if?...". It's appropriate to cry.
2) Oh my goodness how much can be channeled, and started, and built in one week. From feeling that pit of loss, to saying to ourselves "no, I won't just sit by...", to showing up still a little hazy at a volunteer center and mustering out the words "what can I do to help?"; look at where we've come! First responders pulled out wet suits, emergency training, equipment, and courage most of us didn't know existed. Local tow trucks pulled
cars out of the creek instead of the sides of roads. Riesbecks, Amory Rd, Wheeling U, Guntry, the Toy & Train Museum, Triadelphia United Methodist became command posts, warehouses, operation headquarters, and forward response centers over night. Neighbors became life lines, elected officials became another muddy pair of hands in the effort, teachers & restaurant workers became community coordinators, home- makers became team leads, nerds became keyboard warriors, listeners became social workers, retirees became their peak earners for just another critical shift or three. Former flood victims became sages. Everyone became part of the same team and part of the solution.
3) it's about people. "20 cars swept down the creek." "Tractor trailer loads of supplies pouring into donation centers." "Fifty, One, Million, Thousand, Half-a, Hundred Dollars...." You can count a disaster in a lot of ways. They all seem to miss the point unless your counting one thing, people. Our community lost 8 people on Saturday night. And in some weird, 180-degree-
different but also exactly-the-same way our WHOLE community - every single person - gained something, a bond, a resolve, a shared purpose that same night, that we will not lose those eight people in vain, but instead gain that shared something between all of us. It. has. been. Astounding. See people being people. In this moment.
Doing what each one of us, simply, uniquely, individually and collectively, insignificant and profoundly, can do. "I can wash clothes," "I can muck out a basement." "And can staff this table." "I can drive a truck." "I can make food." "I can donate this." "I can deliver anything." "I can do that computer thing." "We can!"
Mutual Aid chapters across the world have the sometimes-unofficial, sometimes-official slogan "neighbors helping neighbors." And that's what I saw more than anything else else this past week - at OVMA or WU or Guntry or TUMC or any of our churches or just in our neighborhoods. It might look different for each neighbor, but being neighborly is also unmistakable when you see it.
Our OVMA operation was set up to run on volunteers. We might have received a bunch of donations, we might have raised (esp to us) a lot of money. But we literally had none of either those things when we started this operation. We built this operation to run on the one thing that we do have in ample supply and that we can absolutely rely on. A week later we still run on the same thing - which isn't supplies & money - it's people.
Muck-out and in-home cleanup is one of the most labor intensive parts of a flood. In WV we unfortunately just know that. It can lag on for weeks and even months after a big flood. There are just jobs that heavy machines can't do. And, it's a thousand times easier for someone else to muck out the basement of your own home. We've had nearly ONE THOUSAND people take shifts with OVMA. i.e take time and energy out of their lives to get gross and sweaty and tired and muddy for people they probably didn't know, for free, in one week. That Is Incredible. I can't process it yet.
4) This is going to end. And that's OK
Do we want to see that many people keep coming out every day? Yes.
Do the people and homes affected by the flood deserve to have those caring groups of neighbors come to their houses and help every week? Yes. But will they? No...
The reality of the situation is that this won't continue. Volunteers with drop off. We'll go back to normal. There is host of reasons - The adrenaline wears off. The sentiment dies down. This sweltering heat dome! We have to go back to work. The passage of time.
And that's OK.
I like the process OVMA built in a week (I'm biased, I help build it). It's by no means perfect. It seems to be pretty darn effective. It channels A LOT of volunteers, it helps a lot of people. We tap into inspiration amid tragedy using almost exclusively pictures of people helping instead of pictures of our neighbors' loss (this was a deliberate point for OVMA). It integrates the county, & VOAD & FEMA & bureaucracy but remains truly grassroots. I like it, but it's going to change, eventually go away. And that's OK.
Out of town groups will come in for a while, a week, 8 days, maybe longer. And that's a
huge boost. And then they'll leave. And that will feel like a gut punch after an uppercut. And that's OK.
The sense of universal camaraderie will also fade... Something about the flood - maybe money, maybe leadership, maybe something else - instead of being unifying will show itself to be differentiating and divisive. And differences and divisions will trickle back into our community - differences in opinion, political differences, there's so many differences to choose from. We'll form back into groups. We'll end up fighting with each other, maybe even with some of the people we worked alongside this week....
That's sad, but that's also ok.
Thats OK Because all that is normal and ordinary; and, for one whole week already we have did something extraordinary. In our time of need, our Ohio Valley community did this. And that is not something to bemoan loosing (we certainly can). But I think that is something to cherish that we had it, while we had it, while we HAVE it, as long as we have it.
So, IF you have 3 hrs that you want to contribute to staying in this moment. IF you still feel this way for 1 hour this coming week. IF you have 30 minutes before your next engagement. Feel free to take that moment. It is absolutely still needed. You know the places you can give that time by now. You know it will absolutely make the difference in someone's life who needs it.
So thank you for doing that. And thank you for what we have done, in one week.
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Glen Dale UMC