Laura's Fury Countered

 I got the chance this past weekend to go to Sulphur, Louisiana and help with the clean up of the area after the damage inflicted by Hurricane Laura.

One of my daughters came along with me, and we cleaned up the debris off several people's homes and yards. For example, here's a before picture, where a huge branch off a tree had fallen on top of an old guy's motorhome and car.

And here's the after:

The damage out there was pretty hard to believe. At one point, we were driving from one house that we were supposed to clean up to the next one, and we came across this downed power line, and the repair crews told us we had to turn around and find another way through, because the lines were blocking the road.

The sight of that crumpled tower was mind blowing. And it wasn't the only one, there was a long row of these munched towers. They looked like toys that an unfeeling, Sid-like kid had just come along and stomped on because it was fun. I assumed that the wind should pass through a structure like that rather than blow it over, but what do I know. My dad was the engineer; I'm just a writer.

It was sweaty, tiring work, but it gave me a bit of a pick me up all the same, because, for the first time in months and months, I was doing something worthwhile, like helping someone in a situation like this:

Living on the gulf coast, we get all too many opportunities like this. I'm going to have to make sure to take advantage of them as often as I can. From what I understand, the group I went with is going back out again next weekend. I may see if I can join them again. My weekends tend to be pretty worthless otherwise, so I doubt there's any reason not to.