#the time lapse video of the waters rising downtown so quickly

[melon-fodder]

Tw: natural disasters/hurricane

I don’t know exactly how to put this into words, and I have to draw upon my own experience, but anyway

As someone who has gone through a catastrophic hurricane several years ago (Harvey), I have seen the aftermath and complete devastation. I’m not sure if I even have followers in the regions hit by Helene, and if I do, I doubt you have the means to access the internet, but maybe someone will see. Maybe a worried loved one.

I am sending y’all all the positive energy I can.

In hurricanes like this—really any disaster—even if you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t lose property or family, watching it all unfold around you and being completely helpless and trapped, is so traumatizing. So much worse for those who do suffer losses.

During Harvey, we kept our power for a few days before it went out, and the whole time we had the news on. I will never, ever forget hearing the anchor say that first responders could not get to everyone, to stop calling emergency numbers if you weren’t in chest deep water. Chest deep. I won’t forget watching the interview of the lady who had lost everything in Katrina only to lose it all again decades later in Houston. I won’t forget officials telling a neighborhood to evacuate because they had to open a nearby dam in a controlled way before it was destroyed. I will never forget the recordings of people begging for help because they had elderly parents and young children in a flooding home, the images of people on rooftops waving for help.

To those of you weathering Helene, you will never forget this, and I am so incredibly sorry for that.

However, you will never forget the way your community will come together afterward. People you’ve never spoken to will help you clean up, will push totaled cars out of the streets, will pick up debris and offer what they can be it food, power from a generator, clothes.

And, it’ll take a long time to come back from this. A long, long time.

But you will get through it. So please take care of yourselves. Please fight. Please survive.