Natural Disasters

We know, here in South Carolina, that we’ll have hurricanes.  

We knew, back in Ohio, that we would get tornadoes.

I knew, way back in West Virginia, that the rivers would flood.

And so it goes.

Natural disasters happen. We expect them. Usually, we get warnings. We stock up on supplies and then we hunker down and hope for the best.

All those natural disasters are just that……natural.  They’re part of the deal and we deal with them as best we can. We count our blessings when we’ve been spared. We’re relieved when loss of life has been minimal and we can put our lives back together.

And we rate those natural disasters.  Of course we do.  We rate everything. We rate things on scales of one-to-ten or bad to worse. Katrina was bad. Matthew, too. We remember them very well. Others did less damage and are not forever etched in our minds and on our landscapes.

But right now, of all things, we’re rating school shootings.  The latest one in Texas, is rated as the next-to-the worst; Sandy Hill being the worst.

Shame on us.  There should never have been ONE school shooting, never mind a whole list of them.  So many that we rate them.  What does that mean for the children who were killed in the “smallest” school shooting?  Are they less significant than the ones killed in the “worst?” Have we forgotten those children as we’ve forgotten our lesser natural disasters?

As Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut asked recently:  “What are we doing?”   Our answer: “We’re doing nothing.” Nothing at all. We’re just sitting back and waiting for the next school shooting because we know there will be another. And another. Just as surely as we know, and understand, that there will be more natural disasters.

We shouldn’t have to accept that those horrific, senseless and decidedly unnatural disasters are simply a given. That they’re inevitable. That there’s nothing we can do about it. Somehow, some way, we have to pull up our big boy-and-girl-pants and just get it done. I really, really don’t want to mourn another child lost to a school shooting.