THE QATSPY® YORKER Performance Sports Training & Apparel Quarters
By: Charles W. Boatright
Prayers-Patience-Perseverance-Resilience– These will be Your Strengths in Rebuilding Your Life after a Devastating Event that Happened
The Devastation from the QUAD-State Tornadoes
First, I spent 33-years working in linework responding to hurricanes, tornadoes, and Ice Storms, that included The 1994 Ice Storm in the Mississippi Delta, 2005 Katrina, Rita, and 2021 Ida. But in all those years, I have never witnessed such wide scale devastation as the Quad-State outbreak of storms/tornadoes during the early morning hours of December 11, 2021.
The loss of life was staggering with storms hitting distribution and manufacturing centers in two states gearing up for the Holidays Season and the nursing home in Arkansas. This included communities in Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Illinois, Tennessee, and Kentucky. This will take a tremendous amount of Prayers, Patience, Perseverance, and Resilience by the people that lost loved ones and homes, grocery stores, and other businesses that include places of worship. The first question is how will I get through this; and where do I start picking up my life again.
Just from my experience, start salvaging the small things that can be gathered up and organize your thoughts and plan for the short period, one day and one week at a time. Reach out for help and pray for patience, perseverance and resilience, you will need these. Even the small things you do each day and hour will help you take those small steps back to some normalcy. It has never failed for me in my response to devastating events that doing the small things will allow for other things to start falling into place. Trust me it will happen!
The reason you want to salvage what you can now, regardless how small they are, is that cleanup crews will be moving into the area to start hauling off storm and building debris. Even the smallest part of your life that you can salvage NOW will help and mean a lot to you later. I have found the small and simple items in my life mean the most to me.
There will never be an answer for the question of WHY things happen in our lives. When preparing for storm responses, I put most of my energy into organizing my resources and plans of what I need to start the restoration process. My diet consists of canned beans and a jar of peanut butter and crackers, high protein food for energy. Keep everything simple and try not to get too far ahead of each week’s work.
Clean up crews will be coming around with some of America’s best equipment to remove debris and clear an area where you can restart rebuilding your life again. Your best foundation to build on are your memories that you have. Your Strength is your Prayer-Patience-Perseverance-Resilience.
If you haven’t had a tetanus shot within the past 10-years make sure you get one. You don’t want to overlook even the smallest cut or scratch or puncture wound by a nail cleaning up. Take time to rest your body and mind over a cup of coffee or class of tea, there will be mental health personnel available to reach out to in your area.