Wind-swept communities band together to clean up after derecho

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July 6, 2012

Wind-swept communities band together to clean up after derecho

By MATT CHRISTIAN Princeton Times The Zope Gazette Fri Jul 06, 2012, 10:05 AM EDT

PRINCETON — I thought that I was going to have a lesson in disaster preparedness to share this week. I really did.

Last Friday night, my parents, my wife and I went to eat. After our meal and a few minutes of exploring the back roads in the Green Valley and Glenwood areas, we returned to our apartment in Green Valley so that my parents could get home.

My mom said, “I think it looks like it's going to storm.”

I thought that she was crazy. I did not think that the darkening horizon was anything beyond a trick of humidity from that viciously hot day.

So, my wife and I walked inside. We saw that our lamp was blinking. Then we noticed other electronics doing the same thing. Finally we heard something blowing around.

My mom and dad called from their ride home to report freakish winds near Kroger's on Stafford Drive.

Given the darkening sky, the howling winds, and the fact that my lawn chair was now beneath my neighbor's car, I told my wife to stay low and in the bathroom because we were in the middle of a tornado.

Later, I learned that the winds were part of something called derecho and not a tornado.

Wikipedia said, “A derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms.”

Still, it was terrifying sitting in the apartment watching the power go off and on again and again and listen to the winds howl like that.

After they died down, we went to sleep.

On Saturday morning, I surveyed the damage to our apartment. We were missing a rug that sits at the door of our apartment, our Internet was down, and one of the gutters connected to the wall of the outside of the apartment had fallen.

In other words, we were very lucky. We had power, the roof was still on our apartment and there wasn't a tree laying on our car. My parents were similarly lucky.

Still, on Saturday, I wanted to see the damage and what had happened in the area. So, we drove through, seeing a moderate amount of damage to the area, mostly in the form of tree branches lying about and the intersection of U.S. 460 and Interstate 77 just outside of Princeton being full of people from Raleigh and Mercer counties seeking gas and provisions to help them cope with a loss of power.

Now, it's Thursday, and southern West Virginia is well on the way to recovery. Appalachian Power is slowly restoring power to the area. Several local businesses have stepped to the plate and provided a place for people without power to cool down while they wait for their power to come back on.

I couldn't help but be reminded of something that my dad said along time ago. The community of Pembroke had just suffered a flood. When we drove through, there were several neighbors that were helping each other to recover from the flood by cleaning up yards and stuff.

My dad said, “This is what America's about, neighbors helping each other.”

I don't know if he was right, but I can tell you that it makes me feel a lot better to know that there are people out there that will help each other in the event of a disaster or tragedy.

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Wind-swept communities band together to clean up after derecho

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