This past week, the southeast was devastated by hurricane Irma. All of Florida was hit, as well as Georgia and surrounding states. The storm caused power and water outages, gasoline shortages and people had to evacuate their homes.
People are still trying to get power back in Georgia, but being up in the northern part of the state, we don't understand what Florida is facing. The flooding, the damage and the traffic as people try to make their way back into the state sounds unbearable. With the severity of this storm, it made me stop to think how much we take for granted and don't appreciate until we don't have it anymore.
Every day we wake up in our beds, take a shower and prepare for the day. We grab our fully-charged phones as we run out of dorm room to go to class. We complain about the lecture we had to sit through, the dining hall food and the walks between classes that are up hill both ways.
But imagine if it was all gone.
Imagine if we didn't wake up in our warm beds in a building that was air-conditioned (or heated) and had the luxury of a warm shower to get our day started.
When Georgia lost power and water, we didn't know what to do. Luckily, we have all started getting these things back, but Florida hasn't. There are places that are on the coast that won't have power or running water for weeks. The streets are flooded and houses are damaged, leaving families without a home. Kids don't get to go back to school because their schools could have been impacted by the storm.
While we all can complain and gripe about our busy schedules and classes and homework, we don't ever stop and think about how good we have it. At least we have a building to go to and a boring lecture to sit it on. We have electricity and charged cell phones and laptops so we can keep up with school work and keep in contact with people.
When a natural disaster like a hurricane devastates an area, thousands of people are impacted. But what's amazing is how many people stop to help. People from as far as Canada have come down to help those that are suffering in these storms. These volunteers stop and realize how lucky we are to have simple things like water and electricity and they are giving up their own time and energy to help those without.
I encourage everyone to take a moment and think about what all we have. Think about all those families that have been impacted by the storm. Yes, school is hard, but so many others have it worse than we do. As you go through your work week, remember all those hurting from these storms and help out in any way you can.
You can donate via Unicef here.
