There was some pretty meaningful destruction that I saw this week from the flooding in the Catskills. Of course, while I was driving I couldn't ogle the scenery very much. But what I did see, what impressed me, was the way the river changed.
It no longer ran with a wide bottom, there were gravel banks everywhere where the flooding had washed up gravel and stones into one spot while cutting a deeper path for the base of the rivers course. And other places, where the river would have meandered before around the bends, it had washed the banks away. In two places, it had eroded half the highway and train tracks.
Whether it's a flood or hurricane or twister or cyclone, we, as small meaningless humans, strive to put the world back together after a disaster. Our ancestors struggled and fought their way west on wagon trains or on ships around South America or through Panama. After being attacked by Indians or dealing with an epidemic of cholera or influenza the early pioneers continued west, at least those who were still alive.
My great-great grandfather died on a wagon train headed west, yet I am here. What gave his family the will to continue? And what about the Donner party, a group of emigrants traveling to California by wagon train who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-1847? They were trapped by the deep snow of the mountains with starvation at the door. It was reported at the time, the survivors were driven to cannibalism. Only half of their party reached California. What gives us, as humans, the will to survive? What would you do?
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