Prattsville, NY in the Wake of Hurricane Irene

On our way to the Hobart Book Village yesterday we drove through the town of Prattsville. Prattsville was the hardest hit town in the Catskills from Hurricane Irene’s flooding. The destruction was heart-breaking; many buildings washed completely away, others ripped from their foundations and left yards downstream to be condemned and eventually bulldozed. There was one property that was particularly striking; all that was left to indicate a house ever existed was set of stairs leading to a gaping hole in the ground where the foundation had been. An ‘Open House’ sign still hung from the railing.

The destruction we witnessed got me thinking about our run with severe weather here in the northeast over the past four years. In our neck of the woods (north-central Massachusetts) we’ve experienced a severe ice storm that left our street looking like a bomb went off with telephone poles snapped in half and houses damaged by falling trees. We were without power for 13 days and the cleanup went on for weeks. The last two summers have produced severe storms with tornadoes, one of which decimated a town in central Massachusetts south of us. Then there was Hurricane Irene (we were lucky to go unscathed), and the freak October snowstorm just a month ago which left us without power for several days. Connecticut was hit the worst by this storm with several communities left without power for over two weeks.

I worry about the future we’re leaving our children and grandchildren. Storms will continue to increase in severity and frequency and the current political climate makes me feel like those of us who are working for environmental awareness are just small voices shouting in the wilderness. I truly despair when I try to picture our world in 50 years. For my part, in addition to the work I do in environmental education, I will try to raise my children to be as self-sufficient as possible. They are learning how to grow food in gardens, and we will start raising chickens this spring. We’re heating our home with wood and I’ll continue to introduce new projects as they are ready for them. I hope that we can teach them the skills they need to survive, and that it will be enough. I fear that we won’t even come close.