Surviving the storm

The recent hailstorm and the damage it brought with it brought to mind similar storms I grew up with in the Nebraska Panhandle as a boy. They were a common occurrence, and farmers typically were happy to only lose one out of three crops to hail. But it had been years since I had been in a genuine “window buster.” So as I stood in our home and watched the roof of our garage take a beating, years slipped away and once more I watched baseball size ice balls fall to ground.

I visualized the wheat fields with barely the occasional stems still standing, and corn stalks stripped bare. Cottonwoods had only a few leaves left, and the ground was littered with the small limbs beaten from the trees. I remembered the time Highway Patrol Officers halted traffic between Sidney, where we lived, and Bridgeport because hail had made the road impassable.

But, Thermopolis is our home now, and this is not the common occurrence it seems to have been in my youth. The sound of nail guns putting new roofs in place attest to the damage done in my community by a storm that is uncommon in the area. Its severity was such that most of my fellow citizens, and myself, are scrambling to find the deductible dollars their homeowners coverage requires on their property.

We will survive this, and we will continue to appreciate our community and one another and the beauty and goodness of each. Dad told me once before I left home how a vicious hailstorm had devastated his Kansas community causing the loss of crops and the death of a neighbor caught in the field with no cover. He remembered how the people had come together to help each other repair the damage where possible, and share the cost of starting over again where necessary.

Thanks be that we’re not in that condition here and now, but the community and some of its members could sure use that same spirit, don’t you think?