Sorting the loot.
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory… Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea — God Bless! [sic] Keep a Big Hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.
“
| — | Elizabeth Warren (via jacobjoaquin) |
Vermont Recovers: A Volunteer’s View
Rounding Route 14 towards West Hartland I got my first look at the damage.
Involuntarily I muttered “Jesus.” Before yesterday I’d seen one major flood in my life, way back in 1972. When I was a 5-year old, Agnes decimated my home area of Central Pennsylvania. But now I was looking at flood damage with the clear vision of an adult. And despite seeing pictures on-line, I was shocked.
It was those pictures and my family’s love of the Upper Valley that brought me north the Sunday of Labor Day weekend. My plan, hatched in a whirlwind 48-hour period, was to collect as many clothes, food and other supplies I could, sherpa them to Vermont, drop them off, then jump in and spend the day helping folks dig out.
The plan was working like clockwork. Our community of Concord, MA came together to stuff our Subaru with over 20 bags of supplies. The Upper Valley Haven is doing fantastic work as a donation supply center; they were ecstatic to get our delivery. And the town of Hartland is staging daily community meet-ups at the Town Hall, where folks gather to get their assignments and volunteer buddies. It was there I re-packed the car with people and an address to head over to West Hartford.
Then I turned that corner and it all became real.
Trees embedded on the pilings of bridges. Cars and playgrounds completely covered in mud. Houses decimated by water, still standing but only a shell of themselves.
One of those shells was our destination. The owner told us that the house had never been flooded. Wasn’t even in the flood zone. So of course he didn’t have flood insurance. Damnit.
We went in and started grabbing. The job was to collect all the water-logged trash, load it into a truck and take it to the dump. The baseboards, wood, insulation and mud smelled and weighed a ton. But that was easy work. Stuffing personal items like books, pictures and toys into trash bags is truly heartbreaking. A family’s life gathered by strangers and taken to the dump.
The homeowners are my new heros. We worked on a couple houses; both had been renovated to the studs in the last few months. Now the houses had to be completely re-built. Or the homeowners had to get out. As they began grappling with this decision and a million others, the homeowners kept their sense of humor and sense of profound thanks.
Many hours later, reeking of sweat and other unidentifiable smells, a shower was needed. First I wanted to see the epicenter of our Upper Valley adventures, Quechee. Over the last ten years we’ve spent countless weeks there. We had just returned from two weeks there in August.
The time walking a transformed Quechee Green proved to be a personally tough moment. This formerly splendid area—where we played with our dog, kicked soccer balls with the kids and had epic games of frisbee—was now one big mudflat. The community garden was stripped of all crops, with crayfish laying where tomatoes had flourished two weeks earlier. As I shared a beer later that evening with locals at Firestone’s, it struck me that Irene hit everyone in some way, shape or form. Now it’s the response that matters.
There are loads of ways to help, including these three specific ideas:
1) Volunteer: Scores of people were shocked that I “had come all the way from Massachusetts.” To me that means more of us need to get up there and help. The VTResponse website is a great resource. Following the hashtags #VTResponse and #VTIrene will yield many volunteer opportunities. And Vermont Helping Hands is a social stream of opportunity.
2) Donate: The Upper Valley Haven is a fantastic shelter and takes contributions of all sorts, including monetary donations.
3) Vacation: Vermont has a toursim-based economy. Despite all the damge from Irene, most places were unaffected. Those that were hard hit are trying to open by leaf-peeping season. So get up there and hike, bike, eat, shop and ski.
The crew at Upper Valley Haven
Volunteers staging in White River Junction
Quechee Green in happier times
Quechee Green today
Icebox from miles up river deposited on Quechee Green
The Quechee covered bridge, tough old bird
As I’ve long suspected, found out this AM that Atomic Tom’s “Take Me Out” is awesome spin bike fodder.
iPad=tumblr?
Got an iPad last December. Wasn’t exactly sure what I’d use it for, but it’s become my go-to device for night-time content consumption.
Taking the same organic approach with tumblr. Been meaning to fiddle with it for a while. Feels like a great platform to put out thoughts longer than 160 characters (plus have some fun).
We’ll see.
