We should thank our public officials out battling the weather
As you read this editorial Tuesday morning, Mother Nature may have set her awesome gaze upon Lassen County once again. We hope that’s not the case. While we appreciate the snow pack and the rainfall, we’ve had quite enough flooding and storm damage already, thank you very much.
We should recognize when the foul weather hits its hardest, some members of our community stand face-to-face against the howling wind, the fierce storm and the rising flood water — our police, our sheriff’s deputies, our fire department, officers from the California Highway Patrol, the office of emergency services and all our city and county workers.
The contributions don’t stop there. The ambulance crews continue working, if there’s a power outage the linemen from the Lassen Municipal Utility District check the lines for faults to get the power up again, the Salvation Army and the Red Cross provide services for those forced from their homes.
Yes, these folks selflessly walk into the eye of the storm for our benefit, often without any recognition or public fanfare. They watch our backs and do all they can to keep us safe simply because that’s what they do. As we hunker down wherever we can and wait for the nasty weather to pass, some among us will be right out there in the thick of the storm looking out for us.
And it doesn’t end there either. After the worst has passed, these folks are out checking for damage, looking for things that put us at risk. We can’t say thank you enough to these unsung heroes, our friends and our neighbors. Try as we might, we can’t hold back the weather, and as 19th century American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “… the best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.”
That’s fine, but remember some of us will be out there right in the middle of it all.
