Monday, May 26, 2008

Windsor Tornado

You may have seen pictures of what happened last Thursday in our little bit of paradise.

To put this in perspective, tornados have been plowing through our neck of the woods for decades. It's just with the most recent housing boom, the crop and pasture land that previously it blew through have grown houses, not wheat or corn.

It is true that the Brown Cow Dairy operation near the missle silo has been there for years, and it is cerainly unfortunate that Oscar Michael Manchester lost his life in the same vicinity. But, as I said, in prior times, the tornados flattened crops and the occasional outbuilding, and seldom struck populated areas.

For all of that, the sounds I have been hearing from Windsor have been along the line of: "We'll get through this."

It is also important to note that later Thursday evening, Windsor's mayor John Vazquez declared a Disaster and requested aid from our Governor Ritter. Governor Ritter officially declared it a disaster area as well, and placed a request to FEMA for federal aid. In other words, they followed chain of command, and didn't just assume FEMA was going to pop up and take care of them (certain cities and state to the south, please take note). And most of the work will be done by the good people of Windsor, helped out by friends and neighbors from nearby towns. I understand that Larimer County to our west has given Weld County (where Windsor is located) one million dollars from their own disaster budget.

But, as I said, the majority work will be done by the good citizens of Windsor. They have been working through the holiday weekend to clean up the debris. Their rest will come later.

What keeps them going, though, is the notion of getting it done; some need to fall back and regroup (who wouldn't?), others are doing what they can already.

And if they can do it, so can you.

Yes, you can.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hope all the families out there are ok. I had heard through the grapevine
that the Tornado in Windsor was a Mile wide on the ground. My prayers are with everyone out there.