Springfield family counts blessings after hurricane Irene

I think my father summed it up best on Sunday when he called me from his Jacksonville, Fla., home and said, "It seems backwards for me to be calling my family in Vermont and checking on THEM during a hurricane."

http://news.yahoo.com/vermont-family-counts-blessings-hurricane-irene-182600965.html

Vermont Family Counts Blessings After Hurricane Irene
By Kyle Fragnoli | Yahoo! Contributor Network – 20 hrs ago


FIRST PERSON | I think my father summed it up best on Sunday when he called me from his Jacksonville, Fla., home and said, "It seems backwards for me to be calling my family in Vermont and checking on THEM during a hurricane." Backward as it may have been, that was the situation my wife, children and I, alongside 600,000-plus other Vermonters, found ourselves in as Hurricane Irene bore down on a state we all thought was previously invulnerable to such storms.

And as we've all learned, Vermont and its Green Mountains are not quite the protection we thought they were.

On a personal standpoint, luck seemed to shine on us during the storm and the week leading up to the storm. Having been vacationing in Virginia, my family was privy to its first earthquake. Then, when we saw the storm's course, we made the decision to head home on Thursday and managed to scoot through both New York and New Jersey before the evacuations made the roads into creeping parking lots. Still, it was somewhat surreal to be rushing home to prepare for a Hurricane in a landlocked state.

Our luck would continue as the rains first started soaking the Vermont countryside late Saturday night and into Sunday morning. While the communities around my Springfield, Vt., home were ransacked with flood waters and power outages, my immediate community and my home weathered the storm and my home, with power staying intact and my sump pump doing its job in keeping my basement dry. The additional flashlights and supplies we had secured turned out not to be needed.

Still, others in our area were not so lucky. A shelter was established in our local high school and my wife and I decided that the extra water and food we had stored would be better served going to a family from neighboring Ludlow, Chester, Londonderry, Amsden or Weathersfield who were displaced when their homes were ravaged by flood waters.

Of course, the other immediate impact is on commerce. Working for a Countertop Fabricator, my company is immediately impacted by the multiple road ways that are either diminished or simply washed away. For a state that is already struggling in the current economy, losing sections of major commercial routes like Route 103, Route 7 and Route 4 will cripple the state during the height of its tourist season and well into its future.

So while we are counting our blessings today and praying for the help our neighbors badly need, Hurricane Irene will have a lasting effect on both my family and my home for years to come.