The calm after the storm.
...and Prospero's magic does not cease to amaze. The entire East Coast seaboard of the United States was in some way affected by Hurricane Sandy's devastating swath of destruction and death. The overnight death toll is given as 30, but that may rise as new storm victims are discovered or those currently in hospital care succumb to their wounds.
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| Above: Example of a widely-circulated, doctored photograph supposedly showing Hurricane Sandy storm clouds ominously hovering over the New York City skyline. |
Aside from the death tolls and bizarre images of destruction in the wake of Hurricane Sandy's wrath, a new phenomenon is spreading--the posting of fake Hurricane Sandy images through social media. These photos do not depict realistic images, but improbable scenes of devastation, such as large waves pouncing on the Statue of Liberty or ominous storm clouds over the New York City skyline. Since many businesses were closed during the weather emergency, I assume a few bored workers stuck at home had time to play around with doctored images and shared those photos with their online friends. But others took photographs of actual property damage, perhaps for insurance purposes, but also to chronicle the historical destruction of Hurricane Sandy.
When you stop to survey the enormous amount of damage or pause to reflect on what happened over the past few days, you begin to appreciate the raw, uncontrollable power of nature. Some people might even ascribe this meteorological phenomenon to divine will, but I cannot go down that road merely because the deaths and destruction seem so random. Why would God--anyone's god--bring about such catastrophe? Perhaps we are being tested again. I don't know. But what I do know is that in all of humanity, no matter how boastful our claims, we could never rival nature's sheer force and power.
That is why I hardly pay any attention to environmentalists who claim we are somehow damaging the planet by our very existence. They say mankind causes so much devastation that the earth will never recover. Oh really? So when a volcano erupts and molten lava burns down tropical forests while changing the landscape, the Earth will never recover from that catastrophic event? Or when a large-magnitude earthquake shakes up the land and creates mammoth-sized tsunamis in the Pacific region, the Earth will never recover from that event either? Or when a global megastorm like Hurricane Sandy just happens to flood low-lying areas and tears down everything in its path through ferocious and unyielding winds, the Earth will never survive such costly destruction? I have to muster a mocking laugh at those apocalyptic and fatalistic environmentalists who believe--with the height of human arrogance--that we can damage the Earth more than Mother Nature herself can. We're at the mercy of the Earth, not the other way around.
I SURVIVED HURRICANE SANDY, WINDY and RAINY
October 28, 29 and 30, 2012.
~Andrew K.
