I think most people would agree that last week was a grind.
Everyone’s tired of hearing about the chaos all over the place. My co-worker, Eric, pointed out that a justice of the peace and his wife were charged with capital murder and likely to face the death penalty for killing the district attorney in Kaufman County and that still wasn’t enough to be the lead story Thursday afternoon because of the explosion in West.
But just as all of the facebook status updates have instructed me, I’ve been looking for the helpers. They’re not hard to spot. In fact, the mayor of West may be wishing there were fewer of them.
Thursday night, he said he appreciated the outpouring of support, but the city now has more than enough supplies. If you want to help, monetary donations or gift cards are the best way to go.
To paraphrase, Texas was too good at helping.
Our sister station, KLIF, even had on a guy called the “Rib Whisperer” from Frisco saying he was bringing his mobile smoker to West. The big one, of course. The one that can smoke more than a ton of meat a day.
That’s how Texas responds. Texas shows up to a disaster less than 48 hours later with a barbecue smoker so big it has to be attached to a specially designed 18-wheeler.
I’ve only lived here five years, but this isn’t the first time this has happened. During the fires at PK Lake, I was talking to the captain of a volunteer fire department and asked if there was anything she’d want me to tell everyone back in the Metroplex.
She looked around for a moment and then said, “Yeah, tell them we love all the help, but we have enough water and gatorade.” She frowned at a pallet of bottled water sitting in a corner. “Who’s going to drink all that water?”
You may remember that fire season got a lot worse before it got better, so the water did get consumed, just not at Possum Kingdom.
In 2008, I was Galveston Island during Hurricane Ike. After the storm passed, I walked outside the hotel with some guys who worked for the transportation department. Much of the island was still under water. From the upper floors of the hotel, you could see fires burning across the island during the storm.
Many of the city employees knew their own homes had been damaged. It would have been perfectly reasonable for them to yell out “Why me?!” or “What are we going to do?!”
“Well,” one of the workers said and started to laugh. “We’d better start cleaning up.”
There was no fanfare, no drama. Everyone just started working. Six months later, the effects of the storm were still easy to spot, but Galveston, for the most part, had mostly returned to the city it was before.
When there’s a real problem, people drop whatever stupid thing they’re arguing about on facebook and try to help. Maybe the stupid arguments help keep our skills sharp for when something real happens.
The desire to help isn’t just limited to Texas. Texas is just better at it.
Doctors and nurses manning the finish line at the Boston Marathon went to work immediately after the explosion, not knowing whether they were putting their own lives at risk.
America is great at manufacturing crises, perhaps the best in the word. It’s fun to holler, when there’s nothing better to do, about how the government is attacking your liberty or attacking the middle class or attacking your right to lie in the marital bed with a goat. But when something really is under attack, whether it’s terrorism in Boston, a hurricane in Galveston or a devastating accident in West, we still know how to react.
We offer up whatever we can, whether it’s supplies, manpower or even just a crockpot of stew.
It’s hard to imagine, however, the mayor of West saying there was too much stew. It got into the 30s the night after the explosion and that, let us never forget, is great stew weather.
A tale of devastation played out in real life right before you last week, but a tale of renewal will soon follow.
Ignore the facebook memes. Look for the stew. Look for Texans doing what they do best: showing up with a bunch of barbecue even though the host told them they didn’t have to bring anything.
