Change of Plans

On Good Friday, a storm rolled through St. Louis that put a wrench into everyone's Easter plans. The storm brought with it a surplus of water and tornadic winds, a potent combination for the northern neighborhoods of St. Louis. The water softened the soil, loosening the grips of even hundred-year old tree roots on their soil. The wind delivered a knockout punch on those trees, pushing them over like dominoes, while cutting a swath of destruction on roofs, limbs, and anything that wasn't tied down. One resident described it as sounding just like they say in the movies, "Like a freight train."

When the storm cleared, it was up to the first-responders to go to work and for our disaster response mode to kick into gear. We immediately began organizing the intake of needs for the 750+ homes affected, raising funds for relief, and beginning the slow but urgent task of patching roofs in preparation for the onslaught of more rain.

For us, this meant forgoing another weekend and working through our fatigue. Many people were coming directly off of projects only to wake up and begin again. For me personally this also meant giving up my plans to go home and see my family for Easter, something that was doubly disappointing since my brother was visiting from California for the first time since August. I worked in the office that day organizing donations and supporting field teams from afar. While I knew what I was doing was important, I had to battle myself to shake off the negativity that came with my ruined family plans.

The day after Easter, I was finally put on a field team responding to the Bellefontaine Neighbors area and that negativity disappeared and was replaced by an urgent need to work. Seeing the destruction first-hand, it was like something out of a dream. Old stately trees had been uprooted and tossed around onto peoples homes in the neighborhood where I worked. Our first house had an old maple snapped in two, leaving us to chop the limbs off of the residents' car and house and to fell the remaining candle-stick of a trunk. Our second house looked like it had been eaten by a fallen oak, as the whole tree had been uprooted and was now leaning upon the roof.

We worked through a light, steady rain that day, trying to remove as much of the weight as possible from the roof before our task of patching any holes. After a few hours of work, we had removed much of the foliage and limbs, leaving only the trunk a few limbs around the power cables. We left those for the more technical sawyers and heavy machinery of one of our other partners.

As we took a break, the rain started to fall more heavily and skies turned more ominous. We took to our vehicle for refuge, but regretted it near the end of our break. The weather only got worse, and we wished we had tarped the few holes while we had a chance. Our team leader proposed mounting one more push before things got worse. We quickly rushed up a ladder, tarp, and some supplies onto the roof, and he stapled on a makeshift tarp barrier to repel the rain. A flash of lightning and a distant peal of thunder appeared on the horizon-- we were too late.

We left a little disappointed that we hadn't been able to patch up the other small hole we had found, but that disappointment shed a light on my previous day's feelings. In the grand scheme of things, my where I am is where I needed to be. While I would have loved a weekend to unwind, my time is much more needed by the little old lady with a tree on her house than by myself. It's good sometimes to have life demand some sacrifices from you: it make you confront yourself on what is truly important and challenges the limits of what you think you are capable of. I ended that first field-work day wet, cold, and tired, but I was happy that I finally understood.