Some things in our life simply defy our meager attempts to understand them … such as Mother Nature’s occasional lack of mercy.
I refer this time to the incessant rain that has inundated the Texas Panhandle, a place my wife and I called home for than two decades. We thought at the time we relocated there from the Gulf Coast that we were moving to a sort of desert.
In some years it fulfilled that fantasy.
Not this year. Not this month. The Panhandle is under water. Literally!
I have many friends there who I know are suffering from outright terror at what could happen to them or their property. Their fear in this moment is legit. It is real.
Years ago, I chatted with the late Rick Klein, a former Amarillo mayor, who recalled flooding that occurred there in the late 1970s. The city vowed to correct that issue, Klein said. So it built an artificial lake just south of Interstate 40. The basin is intended to catch surplus rainwater and keep it from pouring into people’s homes and businesses.
What’s happened lately? The basin is full. As in to its brim! The rainwater at this moment has nowhere to go but into people’s homes and businesses.
I cannot offer any suggestions to combat this horrible string of events. It’s out of anyone’s control. Mother Nature answers to no one.
You’ve heard it said in recent years after mass shootings that a nation’s “thoughts and prayers” are not enough. I am going to offer thoughts and prayers to my friends in the Texas Panhandle. Why? Because that’s truly all we can do to bring relief from Mother Nature’s cruel wrath.