After the Storm

Last week's Tropical Storm Isaias left a path of destruction and disruption everywhere it went to include our neck of the woods (literally as well as figuratively speaking) and we all knew neighbors and businesses who were without power perhaps for hours or even longer. 

We are, I think, a bit spoiled here in The Rose of New England, as the ability and agility of everyone with Norwich Public Utilities from planning prior to threatening weather through to the recovery after the storm, is always above and beyond. I think we may take their service for granted though we always say we're grateful (until the next utilities bill arrives when some of us revert to 'what have you done for me lately?') but watching the news on TV from other areas of the state made me happy to be here (even if many of those who know me aren't so happy).

In my neighborhood, I was disquieted at how Isaias' power had shaken and broken so many tree branches and limbs. On Starr Street, I saw power lines holding up a massive tree branch and keeping it from hitting the pavement, as we all made wide circles around it (over by the road to the 6th Grade Academy at Teachers' Memorial School) and elsewhere on the same street, closer to Asylum, was a VERY LARGE tree now uprooted in someone's backyard perilously close to the house. 

I was in for a surprise much closer to home; a tree trunk shattered and scattered on the sidewalk and front yard of a building on Uncas Street, the white one right next to the memorial, that I have walked past hundreds if not thousands of times and, while certainly no arborist (I do occasionally play one on  TV), I would have believed was sturdy and strong as its branches reached high overhead, throwing their shade across the sidewalk. 

And yet, in Isaias' aftermath, well over half the trunk of the tree was now all across the sidewalk and front yard and it was clear, even to me, despite my beliefs the tree had not been healthy or strong in a very long time. The severe challenge from the storm was enough to topple it. I could still see in its branches some of the nests from birds who'd called it home and could only imagine how panicked they had been to discover their refuge and safe harbor clearly wasn't anymore.

I think, maybe, we're a lot like those birds in the wake of the storm at least in many respects when it comes to how we're handling and living with COVID-19. We've seen ourselves as a prosperous and successful nation even as more and more of us have less and less of the bounties and blessings we tell one another was promised to all of us. 

Whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, we had and have a far more fragile healthcare delivery system, a more tenuous technology support network and infrastructure, and a less open to all and even-handed economy than we assumed/believed. The stresses and strains that the pandemic generated have revealed our belief in a level-playing field for everyone, regardless of whatever artificial artifices we invent, is nowhere near reality. 

COVID-19, like Isaias, will at some point pass. What will remain of it and from it are the lessons we choose to learn and what we do with the knowledge we've gained.  
-bill kenny