Mother Nature on a Rampage

Usually I try to vary the topics of my entries, but this week has been a little two sided. (I would say one-sided, but there are two subjects going on.) Weather and trees. Towns and tornadoes.

The trees I'll have to put on the back burner for now -- or maybe not. Mother Nature decided to give a head start on some of the tree removals. Just ripped and twisted and tossed the trees around a bit. Maybe she's upset with the puny men who are trying to undo her work, or who think they can do her job better than she does.

The puny men (USDA) have requested that anyone with damaged trees inspect them for the beetle. Don't know why they can't do this part of their job themselves, now that Mother has made it easier for them.

And residents and workers are wondering if they are supposed to suspend operations and wait for these people to approve their labors.

Will people have to remain homeless  and powerless -- certainly in more than one sense of the word -- while the government contractors twiddle their fingers waiting for others to do their jobs for them?

They are already onsite, or close enough. You would think they'd be in there before the rest. Just think of all the extra man-hours they could bill taxpayers for, under the circumstances.

Moscow Ohio, Clermont County, on the river, was hard hit. Moscow has been around for close to 300 years, but the historic town is said to have no two story buildings anymore. The brand new business that was building now has no building to finish up. Time will tell if they rebuild. Time and insurance, probably.

More damage was done in the Felicity-Bethel-Hamersville area. How lovely. That's exactly where my sister lives. She was driving home from Hamersville.

There was serious damage in other places as well. The Weather Service declared a tornado emergency in Clermont County, in Ohio. Most of us, including the meteorologists, had no idea what that even means. It took help from my brother in Kansas and the weathermen making phone calls before we knew it means multiple twisters from the same storm on the ground at the same time.

We don't get that here.

It's been an eventful week. Between Big Brother and Earth's Mother, our metaphorical and metaphysical family has kept us hopping. And some are hurting for their actual family. My family was fortunate. Most of the people I know were fortunate.

But some weren't, and I don't think they will be worrying about bugs in trees. They have Life and Death to deal with.