Ireland is Still Wet and So Is Our Office

Greetings everyone,
This is another quick update on the situation here in Ireland, which now seems to have dropped off the world's radar. But then having watched SKY news from the UK last night, it looks like they have dropped even their own flood story, even though it comes with fantastic pictures of rolling rapids and exciting home videos of bridges washing away.

Most of Ireland's flooding has none of this extreme drama, just mile after mile of endless water. Nearly every picture on the news looks depressingly like every other picture. People with grim faces leaving their homes in tears carrying garbage bags of a few items salvaged before they leave their homes, women (for some reason they always pick the wife) tearing up and saying:

"It’s so terrible losing your home, everything you've worked, what will we do for Christmas and where will we live?" Then they push the camera away or start crying for real.

Or, there are photos of handsome young men in uniform, laying sand bag after sand bag in front some neighborhood, with the news fast forwarding a few hours to see them wet, squishy and often breached. The young men move on to the next place they hope they can fight a battle with nature and win. It may not have been the war they were expecting when they joined the army, but it is the one they have now. One of them is a close friend of our families, I find myself scanning the news for his face, each time the young men come on. So far, I have not seen him, but I know he's there, for as long as it takes.

Then, the selfish part of me kicks in, the part that expected him at our house last night. He could have helped with the flooding in our house if he had not been called up! HUSH! I demand to that childish and infantile part of my mind, the one everyone has, the one that remembers you didn't get that cookie you wanted in the first grade or the pony when you were 12. What a horrible thought to think and yet, even though we are so grateful that only one room of our house is flooded, the longer it takes to find the source and get the water out, the more wearing on the nerves it becomes. Thankfully so far it has not spread beyond my husband's office, and it’s only about two inches on the flood. After while, you start feeling a bit helpless what seems like such a small thing starts to take on a larger demission and it becomes PERSONAL.

You may be extremely grateful (seeing how your an ex-pat and it is Thanksgiving in America after all) that you are not one of the 50,000 people without drinking water in Cork, or one of the 100 homes and businesses that your friend from Athlone talked about last night during the meeting, or her friends that had to use chest high rubber clothing to even enter their house to try and rescue something. You’re grateful that you’re not a farmer in Galway trying to drive a tractor through five feet of water to reach stranded cattle to feed them.

But let me tell you something, deep down, you are still well angry. That is when you are not being busy or depressed. After a point, there is not much more you can do than wait. For us, that just means waiting for daylight to see if the water is going down or figure out something new to try. Waiting until we decide the room is or is not going to drain out and do we need to move the 3,000 research and other books now up on high shelves upstairs and start taking down the old shelves? Waiting to see when it might be a good idea to go out and try to find a real, heavy-duty pump? Realizing that every single one in the country is already in use at the moment, we probably will have to continue with what we have for now.

*Note to self, see about a buying a heavy-duty pump next time...

But, then it’s time for the news, today several other stories come first on the televised news at 1 o'clock. The lead story is the release of the results of an investigation of child sexual abuse here in Ireland. Very serious, but soon they get to the flood news. The Taoiseach (Prime Minister) is seen talking to farmer in Offaly with stranded animals and flooded fields, while the announcer mentions air lift of hay and other animal food to those out of reach. We have news that while Cork may have water by Sunday, in Galway and on the Shannon the waters continue to rise. In a monster version of our family drama, thousands of people wait to see just what the rivers (and Mother Nature) are going to throw at them next?

Then, the personal story, there's always at least one. This time, it is the father taking a small boat to inspect the inside of his totally flooded home. His wife, he says, cannot even come to look. This time he is the one to say the words, "I donna what we're gonna do?" He says already they have been told they will never be able to buy flood insurance again. My mind looks into the distance and sees the likelihood of forced taxpayer coverage for a government flood insurance plan. Almost certain to happen now, with the main insurance companies in Ireland bailing like rats that the government warns us are starting to run out of the water and into our houses. Time to set more traps and concentrated the education of the younger barn cats to let them know that it isn't just going to mousies for breakfast anymore.

After seeing all this, I am once again reminded (to the adult part of my brain) just how lucky we are and how grateful we are that nothing else in the house is flooded and that really we are OK.

However, I have learned and important lesson here, no matter how big or small an emergency is. What matters most to you is YOUR emergency and it does not matter the size of it compared to everyone else. If yours is smaller, it may enable you to expend some time and effort to help others as well, but that does not mean it is not going to affect you. To pretend otherwise, is to risk the twin problems of depression and anger. Neither of which is helping in solving the problem, and in a sudden emergency (such as the people of Cork faced when a dam suddenly had to release water after midnight and flooded much of the city) could be fatal.

I need for maintaining morale over long periods of helpless watching and waiting has just been really stamped into my brain in a very powerful way over the last week. Which is why there is lamb leg thawing to have for dinner tonight, if Mother Nature is willing to stay in the background long enough? We are also hoping to send some of our family to the Middle Ages (SCA) event this weekend, though someone will stay home if the water is still standing. If the roads are clear and we can make it to Belfast. Funny, there was a time in my life when a trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland would not seem restful, but life is always changing.

Now I know it isn't just the swift turns of the wheel that can be scary, but the times of waiting have their own issues to work on.

Since my family does not like board games, I will look for other ways to keep up our spirits in future crises. There is the harp my husband and I can both play that needs new strings as well as trying to dry out the 100 or so novels that got wet already. I already caught my husband re-reading the first one to make it; he was holding it as if it were the last book in the world. I saw the title, it was the last novel written by the grand old man of Science Fiction, and Survival Writer before I heard the word: Robert A. Heinlein.

To Sail Beyond the Sunset....

And I think, he's there now and smiling at us, though he also thinks we should all get back to work. There will be time for reading by the fire when it is dark.