BY TONEY ATKINS
As we watched the live television coverage of the terrifying and historic Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy on Oct. 29-30, and particularly observing the horrifying pictures of the aftermath in the Northeast and even into the South, with unseasonable snow and winds there, it was hard to imagine what it must have been like to go through the destructive event.
While living in Florida in the early-and-mid-2000s, I experienced several hurricanes during one season, each with its own frightening and devastating character, but none with the utter power of Superstorm Sandy, which has impacted more than a third of the eastern United States. We're still getting some out the outermost winds of the storm in northwest Georgia as I write this on the evening of Oct. 30.
There were power outages, flooded areas, damaged homes and businesses and even injuries and deaths in the storms I went through. There were the inconveniences of gas stations without electricity to pump fuel into cars; inoperable ATMs, again because of power outages, closed restaurants because foods lost refrigeration, downed trees across power lines, streets and even into homes and onto vehicles. Water in some areas was polluted undrinkable; cell phone service was sporadic. I could go on and on.
Those of us who are not there can only guess how the victims of Superstorm Sandy are feeling, what they have lost and what kind of stress they are enduring because they feel helpless, not knowing what the future holds.
Power companies from around the nation are en route to the scenes of destruction. Others are heading the same direction to help with reconstruction, medical needs and aiding the newly homeless or displaced fellow Americans.
Everyone can help in the recovery effort by making donations to the American Red Cross, the only charity my late father, World War II veteran Charlie J. Atkins, supported because of his experience with the organization during the war.
Anyone wanting to help can go to the web site, http://www.redcross.org/support/donating-fundraising/donations for information and even to make donations without leaving home.
None of us know when our lives will be impacted by Mother Nature's often unpredictable tragedies and when we might help, so it pays to pay it forward. Those who need us now will be grateful.
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