Opinion : When disaster strikes, again and again...

A few weeks ago as I sat in church, without Dean who was out working, so many thoughts raced through my mind.

For the first half hour it was, “Ok, we are doing this song and the intro is what again?” and “Shew, that song went good. And what should I say between these songs, anything?”

Then as I returned to sit in the congregation, I thought, “Okay, now it's up to Pastor Matt to be up there, I wonder what's happening in town.

Is everyone okay?”

Now don't get me wrong, our pastor is one of those guys that I enjoy listening to. Usually every week he has my attention.

But I have to admit, I was torn.

That's the bad thing about this business.

I felt like I should be on the computer, filtering through information to get it out to the town, finding more answers to questions about where people can go for help, getting word out to the community, all the things we do when the world is upside down in our little town.

I remembered well the first major disaster we had to deal with.

The flood.

At the time, the town was without electricity, so we needed to find a place that was off the Vinton grid. We finally located someone we knew that still had their lights on and we lugged the huge computers over to Coots Materials, to crash in their office long enough to crank out a newspaper.

THEN Dean had to drive around all the flooded areas to get it 45 miles away, which turned into about a 2 hour drive, one way, all without the boss seeing the impossible and insane task that it was to do that, because the show must go on...and hey, there was no other way to get word out to the community.

We didn't have a sense that anyone cared about what was going on they, just that we HAD to get a newspaper out.

The one thought that kept running through my mind in church was this.

Vinton has been through a lot.

Every time we are hit with a disaster, the town rallies.

I don't think I remember seeing as much effort in any one town where we've lived, as we've seen in Vinton.

Indeed, when one part of our neighborhood suffers, we all feel the pain and everyone jumps in quickly to help.

I had no doubt that while it was the worst day for many, that there would be many more people just chomping at the bit to lend a hand.

I was sure that there would be stories of strangers showing up to lend a hand, and many kindnesses would be shown, because well, it's Vinton.

That's what we do.

By the time I had gotten to this thought, the pastor was closing, and calling us back to the front for our closing song.

After the service, I met up with Dean so he could recharge a bit, grab a bite to eat before going out again.

It was entertaining to sit across the table from Dean, who didn't close the laptop, and as he frantically uploaded another story, and more pictures, ate pizza and chicken and told me about all that he had seen,

I watched as he tried to wind down, as wound down as he gets while trying to refrain from running out the door to cover as much as he possibly can.

After eating quickly, we talked about how doing this job was so much different that it had been in the past.

We both realized that we were finally in a place that felt like we were able to do something positive by helping to keep the community in touch with each other, we were able to get news out quickly, and accurately, and while the stress of doing that rests on Dean, it was nothing compared to what it used to be. Now it feels like this way of life is actually worth it.

We don't have a boss breathing down our neck, or a “deadline” to meet, or pages to put together, but we simply, cover the news and get it out as soon as it happens.

We don't dramatize it like it's often done on TV.

We don't get in your face with a camera and interview you in a crisis like this, we cover it from a distance until you can get your feet under you again, and then we see how we can help.

But most of all, we felt like we were part of the community and not just doing a “job”.

And as Mother Nature said again,, “Here Vinton, take THAT!” we saw Vinton once again, stand up, shake off the dust, begin to clean up  and stand up tall and our reply was, 'Hey, we can handle anything because we do all we can to help each other when you come to visit. But seriously, would you mind visiting someplace else for a change? Preferably, the middle of an empty field next time..."