MUMBLINGS January 13, 2005

Sometimes, mother nature can be anything but motherly.

Natural disasters all over the world are often too numerous. We're talking about such things as floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, etc. They can be horrendous.

The hurricanes in southeast Alabama and Florida sustained last year did billions of dollars in property damage. Fortunately, deaths were few.

The earthquake that ranged 3,000 miles of African and Asian coastlines recently has left over 150,000 of confirmed deaths and this is probably not including all those unidentified and those who can't be found. If you want to put it in terms that are more understandable, the number already reported dead and missing is about the same number of people who live in all of Baldwin County. Can you imagine such an incident that would come along and could clean all of us off the earth?

Put it in another perspective, the five or six million people, or perhaps more now that are without housing are more people than we have in the entire state of Alabama.

It's almost impossible to imagine the horribleness of such an earthquake. Think about a thirty-foot wave rolling towards you at the rate of 500 miles an hour. It's impossible to estimate the pressure and the devastation that such a thing can cause.

I am not up to date on such matters, but this is perhaps the worst natural disaster on this earth in a number of years, if not forever.

However, there are two things that stand out in this earthquake: one, the unbelievable horribleness of it, and two, the generosity of people throughout the world willing and apparently anxious to help the poor souls suffering in these countries. Although help is coming from many countries in the world, none are as generous and eager to help as Uncle Sam and the various agencies such as the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and many others willing to plunge in and try to be helpful.

Apparently, the countries most damaged are Indonesia with about 100,000 deaths, Sri Lanka with up to 40,000 or 50,000 deaths, and to a lesser degree India, Thailand and several other countries.

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Continued

Most of us here in the United States have little or no understanding or comprehension of the countries involved, the type of people, the economy, the lack of health, food and other things that we naturally have become accustomed to.

We had an opportunity to visit most of these countries 20 years ago while on a cruise ship. Indonesia and some of the countries seemed to be doing well with lots of rice production and even a growing tourist economy.

The countries have comparatively low lying swamps, jungle and wetlands and much rain. The people in the main are light tan, smaller in size than we are but energetic and willing to work.

While on the trip, we ran across this big ship dead in the middle of the ocean between two of these countries. An SOS had been put out by them and fortunately our ship's captain picked it up, found out that we were nearby and cruised to rescue these several hundred people who had been there several days without water, food, etc.

The ship was apparently old and had run out of fuel or had other mechanical problems. The passengers were going from one country several hundred miles over the sea to another country seeking employment. Our cruise liner picked them all up, gave them food, clothing and dropped them off in a seaport within several hundred miles of where permission had been granted through proper authorities to permit us to leave them there.

Tragedies are nothing new for citizens of these poorer countries.

Again we can thank our lucky stars that we are American citizens living in the greatest country on earth and fortunately, most of us have good hearts and are willing to divide with those less fortunate.

See you again soon, I hope.