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We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat
Sarah Says 01-25-2023
Sarah Lawson

I love swimming, I was always that kid that would spend hours on end in the pool to the point where my family would have to drag me out. I never thought that my love for being in the water would come knocking on my front door and make the streets into rivers and parks into pools.

We all know that we needed rain, that is true, and boy did we get some. The flooding the past couple weeks has been no joke, not to mention the tornado warning that Stanislaus/San Joaquin counties got earlier this month that jolted half of us out of a dead sleep. Mother Nature has been a little angry and I wonder what her next steps are going to be.

My car is a little lower to the ground than most so leaving town was not in my agenda for the sake of my car turning into a boat. Even though I was tempted to trade my car in for a kayak.

There was even a whole barn-like building that got picked up without breaking apart by the wind and lifted over a fence into the other pasture next door. Not to mention freeways being closed because it was deeply underwater, and no cars were able to safely travel down it. Roads are crumbling with erosion and creating giant sink holes that are taking down roads from one side to the other.

After Mother Nature threw that strike at us, we got a little break before another round of flooding and road closures began.

Poor towns like San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Francisco and Merced were just some of the few that got hit a lot worse with flooding than most. Portions of Merced, for instance, had to be evacuated due to how deep parts of the town were under water.

Sometimes the world worries more about larger things that could go wrong around the globe, but most do not stop to think about the deep issues that water could bring. Water is just as destructive as fire and just as equally as dangerous.

California was not the only state that got the bad part of the storm, but it still was pretty bad for those of us in the Golden State. When that tornado alarm went off after 3 a.m. it scared me awake and then I began to hear the wind and the loud hail and I will admit, I got scared and went and woke up my aunt because I couldn’t sleep. Then of course I went on Facebook and saw all the posts about everyone being awake at the same time and got a little laughter in.

The world is going through changes, and I feel like a lot of the things going on right now should really be highlighted and focused on. Instead of freaking out about the small things, we really have to change the way we treat the world because if we don’t, then we won’t have a place to be on to worry about those small things.

It is nice to have some days of sunshine though, driving around with my windows down and feeling the cold breeze with warm sun is my favorite. Winter is my favorite season, even if it isn’t for many others. I love the cold, the beauty in the cold amazes me. From snow to rain and frost, it is all beautiful to me.

For those who get cold easily I highly recommend going to Costco and buying their heated electric blanket, it is so soft and fluffy and has controls to heat up each side of the blanket separately. Best purchase decision of my life last year.

The cold and crazy weather is not over, but at least we are a little more prepared every time we experience a storm, keeping us ready for the next one.

The world is crazy, but we still have to live on the planet, so why not at least try to work on fixing it while we can.

 

Sarah Lawson is a former staff reporter for The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News; she continues to contribute a regular column.