You always say "it" will never happen to you, so if "it" is not you who does it happen to? For us the "it" came on a Friday evening in May of 2013, we had just returned from our first ever Disney World Trip and things were perfect...until the news broke that we were under a tornado warning, now I will be the first to admit living in the Midwest I don't always put a lot of stake in these but for some reason this night I did. I remember being home alone and running around the house gathering the flashlights, plugging in the phones and making sure I had shoes on, my purse on my shoulder with our keys in it. My Husband and Daughter were on the road about 15 minutes out and I just remember telling them to hurry and meet me in our lower level interior room and to leave their shoes on. Less five minutes of them walking into the house it became eerily silent outside, then the sound almost like that of a train going by came and went, the power went out and just moments later we could hear the frogs and crickets outside and knew it was clear to come out.
Without thinking we went upstairs, to make sure everything was fine and on the surface it was. We called my parents who live across the street, they had power and told us to come over. We ended up staying all night and around 5am my phone rang, it was my friend who owns the newspaper route in town calling to see where we were and check to make sure we were okay. It seems that we were either the first or last house to get hit by a tornado that evening, we had downed power lines, a lot of landscaping to deal with a downed billboard in our yard, but the worst came from our roof that had managed to take a hit and pool water until it finally came out in our ceiling vents all across our upstairs. Based on where we live and other damage in town we were without power for several days, we lost all of our food, had a extensive amount of interior water/ceiling/roof damage and of course no power to help with the clean up.
Thankfully we were safe and had my parents across the street for someplace to stay. We also manged to get it all taken care of and our insurance was generous with our claim, but some people don't always get off this easy, my sister who owned a duplex just two blocks over lost one entire side to the storm, several people in town lost their homes and the High School lost the gym, which is a landmark in town. Like everything else in life, you rebuild or moved on, but the memory still remains.
Which is why when I see natural disaster events like Hurricane Irma I feel I understand how fast Mother Nature can take it all away, our homes, places of employment, our schools, places of worship and worse of all the places that sell the supplies to get back on your feet from food, water, gasoline to the materials you need to clean up and make the necessary repairs. Take for example Beaches Resorts in the Turks and Caicos, over 800 families have been affected by this Hurricane and need our help.
We were first introduced to the Sandals Foundation four years ago. Over that time I have personally met the wonderful people who work with the organization. Last year I was invited to join them in visiting a elementary school in Jamaica where I read to a young boy and left his class with some supplies before leaving.
In doing so I learned more about what the Sandals Foundation is able to do for the Caribbean in times of emergency, like now in the recovery of Hurricane Irma. The only problem is they can not do it without our help which is why Mike, Maris and I invite you to join us in making a donation to the relief efforts. Donating is simple, just visit the Sandals Foundation, select “Disaster Relief”. 100% of your donation will go directly to those who need it, no amount is too small or large.
Together we can help these amazing people rebuilt their lives and come December when Beaches reopens we can all know we had a small part in it.
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