Natural Disaster

We just had a 5.9 earth quake in DC, which is pretty significant. In talking with friends on FaceBook (since all cell service has been knocked out) it is amazing how many different our initial assumptions were to what was happening: gas explosion, tree falling on a home, unbalanced washing machine, and living so close to DC, bomb.

I think I was most struck at how as a mom I felt so incredibly powerless to protect my baby. It took a while to even register that it was an earthquake, but as soon as I did, I had absolutely no idea what to do.

It made me realized how horrible it would be to be a parent through a natural disaster. I have experienced first-hand a tornado, hurricanes, blizzards, extreme ice storms, a mud slide, drought and intense floods but this was my first natural disaster as a parent. And as scary as any show of nature's power can be, it is especially scary when you realize that you are responsible for another tiny soul, and are completely powerless to protect them.

I have never been so terrified in my life.

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2 comments:

  1. StephanieFebruary 29, 2012 at 4:56 PM

    Have no idea why I didn't know about this blog until today (love it, BTW), but TOTALLY understand how you feel on this subject. The WORST hour of my life was spent in the basement with one child on my lap while the other one was at school with tornado sirens blaring. I think that, if I had tried, I could have outrun (and I mean run literally), the storm in an attempt to get Everett home.

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    1. Caraline HickmanFebruary 29, 2012 at 5:53 PM

      It was awful, I've no never felt so completely powerless in my life. It made things like Katrina and the earthquake in Haiti even more incomprehensible to me.

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