When Safety Is No Longer

I was a Girl Scout. I camped with my troop at Camp Cedar Hill outside of Boston. For a poor city kid, camping was life-changing, full of lollipop trees, camp songs and sneaking out to run the leaders' bras up the flagpole.  We never feared for our safety, neither did our parents. That all changed as of the morning of July 4th this year.

When I awoke Friday morning, I looked out from my desk to another blue-sky day shining through the window. Another glorious day, I thought. Little did I know my heart would soon break into tiny pieces as I skimmed the news. 

There at the top of the fold was the story of an all-girls camp in the Texas Hill County - Camp Mystic - where over 20 girls, within seconds were washed away by a flash flood. How could this happen?

According to people who are paid to know these things, the reason is multifold. First, climate change has increased the risk of extreme weather. Second, the cuts to our Weather Service left gaping holes in the expertise needed to accurately predict such  horrible weather events. The third reason will be spoken about at the end of this post.

These little girls, eleven of whom are still missing, are the faces of our little girls. I see my four daughters and six granddaughters in their faces. I remember the joy of camping with them when they were the ages of these precious children. I remember hearing about the adventures my girls and grands had at camp...the songs, the friends, the stories. This is what summer is all about. This is how we give our children those summer memories that will brighten their darkest days when the years take their toll and our children find themselves in the later years of their lives.

These little girls will never have the time to look back at these golden summer memories. And so I weep...I weep for the parents who trusted that their girls were going to be creating wonderful summer memories. I weep for the little girls who will always be a group of sunshiny faces looking out at the world frozen forever in a photo. I weep for the rescue workers who went from "search and rescue" to "search and recovery" in a matter of hours. Finally, I weep enraged because our country's government has, in the last six months, made sweeping decisions that have created horrific headlines like this around the world. 

Our safety, the safety of our children, and of our world should never be on a chopping block or placed in a woodchipper. Girl Scouts taught me that...safety first...be prepared. How can we the citizens of this country as well as the world be prepared when the money that was set aside for Weather Forecasting, FEMA, USAID, and FAA, to mention a few, has been removed by those with no concern for safety or people or our children's lives?

In summary, the third reason this happened is because our country has allowed apathy, avarice and artifice to take sway over compassion, civil courage and critical thinking. As a result, we wake to headlines on a July 4th morning that rips our hearts out and washes our joyous memories of childhood summers down a rain swollen river as it flash floods through the early morning hours.