Fire, rain, and the marvel of human resilience

Since it became clear that Boulder—and then Colorado more broadly—would have major flooding, I’ve been wondering what I might be able to say about it in a blog. As I start writing, I’m still not sure … but that’s nothing new.

Thoughts on the flood …

Many of you have undoubtedly seen the slide shows and videos, read the coverage, and heard stories on the radio. Those of you who live around here have probably swapped tales with family, friends, and coworkers. It’s all stunning: streets running like rivers, houses vanishing into the creek, flooded basements, damaged and destroyed cars, shops and their wears flattened, tiny streams spreading over acres of land, sewage backing up through manhole covers and basement drains. People startled from sleep by the sound of boulders crashing into their homes. Neighbors helping neighbors to lay a futile line of sandbags, cross a swollen stream, dig through mud and debris to get to a buried home. Rivers leaving their decades-old (or centuries-old) beds to carve new paths through land that used to be farm or lawn or parking lot. People stranded on hillsides, in shelters, at friends’ houses waiting for rescue by a National Guard helicopter. Promises that roads and bridges will be rebuilt to restore access to isolated towns before the snow falls.

Nothing I can say matches all that. These “reality” TV-esque events, come paradoxically to life, are commentary enough.

But then there are the less-told stories, shared among those of us who—by sheer good fortune—were spared these experiences. Louisville, where we live, is farther east and significantly higher than Boulder—both characteristics that spared us the raging torrents that roared down the mountain canyons west of Boulder and straight into town. Imagine rocky funnels gathering water from torrential rains over miles and miles of already drenched mountain slopes, channeling it all into narrow canyons that empty into the western edge of a college town nestled right smack against hills. Add the rain that’s falling in sheets over the town itself, and you get a hint of Boulder in this epic storm. Climb a significant rise to the east, away from the mountains, to a plateau overlooking the valley that cradles Boulder, and you get a hint of what it’s like in Louisville. It’s like a different world, mostly.

I say mostly, because now, almost a week after the flooding began, I’m beginning to hear stories about damage even up here. I spend a fair amount of time doing my editing work at the local coffee shop, and the chatter there over this past week has followed an interesting trajectory. For the first few days, everyone who came in was talking about how lucky they (we) are to have escaped any (or severe) damage. Then stories started rolling in about the nearby creek that overflowed its banks, closing several roads and causing flooding in some Louisville neighborhoods. With those stories came tales of people helping other people to clean out flooded basements and clear mud from streets and driveways. Then yesterday, I heard about a buddy of one of the regulars who had been evacuated from one of the canyons, but had gone back to collect his stuff. Today for the first time, I heard someone in the coffee shop who had himself backpacked out, leaving his house and most of his stuff behind in a flooded canyon west of Boulder.

But still, for the most part, we regulars at Paul’s are a privileged lot. Mostly, Louisville came out pretty well. And that feels strangely surreal. One person told me he feels a little guilty, and I completely understood what he meant. When I look out my window, I can see that it’s been raining a lot lately. On the day of the worst part of the storm, I looked out my window and saw that it was raining really hard. Period. That’s it. No flooding, no fear, no worry, no damage. Yet I know that just a few miles down the road, all heck broke loose that night.

For several days, following the guidance of emergency workers, my partner and I stayed near home and didn’t venture into Boulder. Then over the weekend, when travel restrictions were loosened, we went in to do a couple of errands and check on my partner’s private practice office. Amazingly, it’s fine, although it’s located quite close to Boulder Creek, which overflowed its banks big time during the height of the flooding.  But then yesterday, when I went into Boulder for a medical appointment, I found that the first floor of the medical center where my doctor’s office is located was flooded. Outside, the streets looked like newly abandoned river beds, full of mud and rocks, with the water’s flow traced along the edges, and the grasses and flowers bowed down, pointing the direction of the flow. It’s all so spotty. We’ve talked to friends who live in Boulder who had mild damage, others who had serious damage, and others who had none. Even in Boulder, high and dry can co-exist in the same block with heavy flooding. It all depends on the whims of the rain, the wind, the currents, the local layout. 

And through it all, after each trip to Boulder, I come home to the comfort of a dry, intact, unchanged home. I look out the window and can see that it rained a lot in the last few days. That’s all.

Today, I ran into a friend at the dentist’s office. Her basement flooded the first night, and she had tales to tell about hurried 1:00 am efforts to save her teenage daughter’s stuff as water filled the basement, followed by a day’s labor cutting up and removing soaked (brand new) carpet. That will be followed by the long slog ahead of tearing out, rebuilding, and refurnishing. “We were lucky,” she said. “We’re all fine.”

Yesterday, I noticed that assorted requests for flood-relief funds have begun to crop up—in the grocery store, in the dry cleaner’s, even on national online sites. Seeing these reminded me of similar pleas during the Four Mile Canyon fire just three years ago. On Labor Day 2010, a major fire broke out in the hills just west of Boulder, ultimately burning thousands of acres of forest and destroying scores of homes. Some of this week’s flooding happened in areas affected by that fire. The fire, like the flood, left many people homeless and many more with seemingly unending cleanup and repair lying ahead. In the fire, too, neighbors showed up to help neighbors. And then, too, people—even people who lost their homes—said, “I was lucky.”

Part of this feeling “lucky” is the sheer relativity of it all: Most folks can count themselves lucky in comparison with what might have happened or what happened to others. I can easily say I’m lucky. All I notice is that it rained really, really hard. My partner can say she’s lucky because, although she had to drive, white-knuckled, through blinding rain and rising waters, her drive was relatively short and she got home safely. My friend at the dentist can say she’s lucky because, although her basement flooded, they’re all safe and the house is generally intact. The guy I heard today at the coffee shop feels lucky because his house is still there, although currently inaccessible and likely damaged, and he’s safe. I read interviews with people who had to be airlifted out, who had lost their homes and everything in them, who said they were lucky because everyone in the family got out alive. “Lucky” is relative. This is a great coping skill, to judge life not in absolute terms but in context.

Now, I realize that some folks don’t feel lucky in any way. Some people died. Some lost loved ones. Some lost treasured possessions that are irreplaceable (for any of a million reasons), some lost a way of life that they cherished and will never be able to rebuild. Some came to the tragedy with too few resources—monetary, physical, emotional—to come away feeling OK about coming away. But many people who could well be feeling overwhelmed, bitter, powerless are instead feeling “lucky.” Why, I ask myself.

There’s something more to it than just feeling OK relative to someone else, some hypothetical worse outcome. After the Four Mile fire, I came across a blog by a woman who lost her house in that fire. She’s a wonderful writer, and I got totally engrossed in her journey back from that tragedy to building a new home (in the same spot) and moving forward in new ways. She challenges the easy conclusion that, in the long run, the fire was a “good” thing, losing her house and rebuilding were a “gift,” etc. Sure, she says, she learned a lot, made new friends, emerged from the tragedy with new strengths and new promise in her life. But that doesn’t make the fire or the loss of her home a “good” thing—and she’s troubled when people frame it this way. Instead, she believes that this interpretation of such tragedy says something else entirely … I’ll leave it to you to consider her thoughts about that. Here’s her blog on the topic.

I love what she had to say about this issue … but what her discussion made me think about today was this: It’s not the fire or the flood that was a good thing. No, the “good thing,” the “blessing” in such moments is that folks realize their ability to tap into this amazing reservoir of resilience that so many people bring to these awful moments, these unbelievably daunting, disheartening, even devastating circumstances. Not everyone does this, I know. But so many people do. Part of this is personal, gut-deep inner resilience whose origins are undoubtedly complicated and varied. And part of it is the upwelling of what the German’s call Gemeinschaftsgefühl—a sort of untranslatable word that means something like “community feeling” or “feeling for humanity.” It’s what we mean when we say that in crisis, everyone pulls together, neighbors take care of neighbors. (Would that it didn’t require a crisis! But then, that personal store of resilience is often hard to find except in crisis, too.)

I don’t want this to slip into some sort of positive thinking pop psychology thing: "Stand strong! Work together! Hang on! Draw on your innate resilience! … and all will be well." Nor do I want to disregard the very real and irredeemable losses that some people have faced.

I just want to pay homage to this marvelous thing that comes alive when we are stretched beyond what we believed we could handle. So far, I have only observed and marveled at this in others. And for that, I realize I am truly lucky. I understand that my turn may come, and if it does, my hope is that I might find such resilience myself. And if not—or if it’s not enough—I hope I have a community willing to bring on that Gemeinschaftsgefühl.