Sunday, November 18, 2012

Cleaning Up Sandy's Mess

First thing tomorrow morning, my wife Becky and I leave for Ocean City, New Jersey, where we will participate in the cleanup and recovery in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. I am a trained reservist with Hope Force International, and this will be my first deployment.

I am letting you know not so you will think we are some kind of heroes for giving up our Thanksgiving -- we are incredibly spoiled by the fact that all three of our sons, our two daughters-in-law and our grandson all live within ten minutes. We are doing our best not to take this for granted, as we know this season will probably not last forever. It is not as if we had family coming in from the four corners to be with us on Thanksgiving. We treasure every time our immediately family is able to be together. 

I am letting you know because I'm sure a number of you are interested to know what conditions on the ground really are like in the wake of this disaster. While we had a flooded basement after the 2010 flood in Nashville and had to replace several appliances, that pales in comparison with the plight of more than 30,000 people in parts of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut who have been left homeless in Sandy's wake.

Since I'm not at all sure I'll be able to blog about our observations while we're there, I'll most likely be posting occasional updates on Facebook -- so please feel free to follow me there. I'm sure it will be a Thanksgiving we won't soon forget.

Happy Thanksgiving.