Storm Aftermath Quotes

Everything about her is captivating, like the aftermath of a storm. People aren’t supposed to get pleasure out of the destruction Mother Nature is capable of, but we want to stare anyway. Charlie is the devastation left in the wake of a tornado.

I love weather. I'm a connoisseur of weather. Wherever my travels take me, the first thing I do is turn on the weather channel and see what's going on, what's coming. I like to know about regional weather patterns, how storms are created in different altitudes, what kinds of clouds are forming or dissipating or blowing through, where the winds are coming from, where they've been. That's not a passion everybody shares, I know, but I don't believe there are any people on earth who, properly sheltered, don't feel the peace inside a summer rain and the cleansing it brings, the renewal of the earth in its aftermath.

In all my years, I’ve learned that life delivers many storms for us to weather. Some will be slow, brooding, quiet beasts, and others will be loud, thunderous, and frightening. But if you’re willing to look close enough, no matter how devastating the storm may be, after the rain you’ll always find new life sprouting in the aftermath.

Everything about her is captivating, like the aftermath of a storm

She's watching me: strands of hair stand between me and a full view of her face. She's beautiful, but in a shameful way. One I'm not sure I'm supposed to appreciate. Everything about her is captivating, like the aftermath of a storm. People aren't supposed to get pleasure out of the destruction Mother Nature is capable of, but we want to stare anyway. Charlie is the devastation left in the wake of a tornado.

You, who only know love when in love, do not ask what it is, nor do you look for it. But when a woman once asked you if you were in love with love itself, you were evasive and escaped by answering: I love you. She persisted: Do you not love love? You said: I love you, because of you. She left you, because you could not be trusted with her absence. Love is not an idea. It is an emotion that can cool down or heat up. It comes and goes. It is an embodied feeling and has five, or more, senses. Sometimes it appears as an angel with delicate wings that can uproot us from the earth. Sometimes it charges at us like a bull, hurls us to the ground, and walks away. At other times it is a storm we only recognize in its devastating aftermath. Sometimes it falls upon us like the night dew when a magical hand milks a wandering cloud.

Tabitha knew from hard-won experience the hardest part wasn’t enduring the storm, or accepting the end. It was finding a way to put the broken pieces together in the aftermath.

In truth, Serenus, I have for a long time been silently asking myself to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I can find nothing that so closely approaches it as the state of those who, after being released from a long and serious illness, are sometimes touched with fits of fever and slight disorders, and, freed from the last traces of them, are nevertheless disquieted with mistrust, and, though now quite well, stretch out their wrist to a physician and complain unjustly of any trace of heat in their body. It is not, Serenus, that these are not quite well in body, but that they are not quite used to being well; just as even a tranquil sea will show some ripple, particularly when it has just subsided after a storm. What you need, therefore, is not any of those harsher measures which we have already left behind, the necessity of opposing yourself at this point, of being angry with yourself at that, of sternly urging yourself on at another, but that which comes last -confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and have not been led astray by the many cross- tracks of those who are roaming in every direction, some of whom are wandering very near the path itself. But what you desire is something great and supreme and very near to being a god - to be unshaken.

She's beautiful, but in a shameful way. One I'm not sure I'm supposed to appreciate. Everything about her is captivating, like the aftermath of a storm. People aren't supposed to get pleasure out of destruction Mother Nature is capable of, but we want to stare anyway. - Silas Nash

It was scary. It was dark. You couldn't see anyone. You could hear people hollering, "Help, help." And all you can see is the stars, so many stars in the sky. More than we saw before when we had electricity. That's the only light we had, the stars. And it was just so close, so close to me. I just laid on the porch and watched the stars. And to me, this might sound crazy to other people, but to me it was like God looking down at us and talking. We don't hear no voice but he's talking. And to me it was like everything was going to be all right and my baby, my son who had died, is going to to be with him. And I always felt like I'm gonna be all right. And I don't have no fear.

Filipino people, the people of Tacloban, and Samar, and Cebu, and all these places where so many have died, they are strong not just to have survived this storm, but they are strong to have survived the aftermath of this storm. They have survived for a week now, often with very little food, with very little water, with very little medical attention. Can you imagine the strength it takes to be living in a shack, to be living, sleeping on the streets next to the body of your dead children?

Perhaps some wine will wash things clean,’ suggested Bugg. ‘Won’t hurt. Pour us some, please. You, guard, come and join us—standing there doing nothing must be a dreadful bore. No need to gape like that, I assure you. Doff that helm and relax—there’s another guard just like you on the other side of that door, after all. Let him bear the added burden of diligence. Tell us about yourself. Family, friends, hobbies, scandals—’ ‘Sire,’ warned Bugg. ‘Or just join us in a drink and feel under no pressure to say anything at all. This shall be one of those interludes swiftly glossed over in the portentous histories of great and mediocre kings. We sit in the desultory aftermath, oblivious to omens and whatever storm waits behind yonder horizon. Ah, thank you, Bugg—my Queen, accept that goblet and come sit on my knee—oh, don’t make that kind of face, we need to compose the proper scene. I insist and since I’m King I can do that, or so I read somewhere. Now, let’s see . . . yes, Bugg, stand right over there—oh, massaging your brow is the perfect pose. And you, dearest guard—how did you manage to hide all that hair? And how come I never knew you were a woman? Never mind, you’re an unexpected delight—ow, calm down, wife—oh, that’s me who needs to calm down. Sorry. Women in uniforms and all that. Guard, that dangling helm is exquisite by the way, take a mouthful and do pass judgement on the vintage, yes, like that, oh, most perfect! ‘Now, it’s just occurred to me that we’re missing something crucial. Ah, yes, an artist. Bugg, have we a court artist? We need an artist! Find us an artist! Nobody move!

Not only did some slaves vow to protect their “white folks,” as though the imminent arrival of the Yankees required a reaffirmation of loyalty, but they did what they could to ensure their safety. Preparing for the Union soldiers, a maid in Mary Chesnut’s household urged her mistress to burn the diary she had been keeping lest it fall into the hands of the enemy. During the siege of Vicksburg, Mary Ann Loughborough, along with her daughter and servants, took refuge in a cave and remained there during the Yankee bombardment; one of the servants stood guard, gun in hand, assuring his mistress that anyone who entered “would have to go over his body first.

I’m so exhausted with worry, I go to bed early that day. But hours later, I’m still awake. I can’t seem to fall asleep. Not without him by my side. When did I become so addicted to Jake? Why do I crave his company? Since forever, my conscience responds. After my father’s death, I went off the deep end because he was not there. I sought the BDSM lifestyle, not because I yearned for it, but because I wanted the pain. If Jake had been there, somehow I could have muddled through the aftermath of my father’s funeral without looking for someone to tie me up and administer punishment. I wanted to be beaten as an outlet for my agony. Not that it made any difference. Even after I flew to Brazil, the pain was still there. It still is. And I know why. Because he’s not by my side. As much as I want him to be here with me, he never signed on to babysit me for life.

Tell me not here, it needs not saying, What tune the enchantress plays In aftermaths of soft September Or under blanching mays, For she and I were long acquainted And I knew all her ways. On russet floors, by waters idle, The pine lets fall its cone; The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing In leafy dells alone; And traveler's joy beguiles in autumn Hearts that have lost their own. On acres of the seeded grasses The changing burnish heaves; Or marshalled under moons of harvest Stand still all night the sheaves; Or beeches strip in storms for winter And stain the wind with leaves. Possess, as I possessed a season, The countries I resign, Where over elmy plains the highway Would mount the hills and shine, And full of shade the pillared forest Would murmur and be mine. For nature, heartless, witless nature, Will neither care nor know What stranger's feet may find the meadow And trespass there and go, Nor ask amid the dews of morning If they are mine or no.

marveling, as he always did in the aftermath of his spells, just how much they resembled tropical storms. As they approached, he often could sense the change in barometric pressure, as he had done on the ferry, even though the storm was still far out at sea, churning away, gathering force, bearing down. When it finally came ashore there wasn’t much to do but ride it out, just let it howl and rage and do its worst. At some point his buffeted, terrified psyche simply gave way to a profound sense of calm, there in the storm’s gentle eye. It wasn’t unlike what people coming down from acid trips often described—the self simply dissipating. To Teddy, a breathtaking moment of splendid, weightless drifting away. In another second or two the world and its cares would cease to matter. In their place, blessed oblivion. But then the winds returned, the shard pierced flesh, and he would know the truth—that escape was yet another false narrative. Later, bloodied and chastened and exhausted, he would do what he always did—claw up into the light, blinking, and survey the damage. Make an inventory of what was irretrievably lost, what was merely damaged and in need of mending, and then, most vitally, somehow locate and reestablish that charmless but necessary even keel that allowed for smooth, if unadventurous, sailing. What he called his life.

She’s an innocent, Father. I told myself I would not do this thing, that it was wrong, but I knew I would.” It was a measure of his distress that he called the priest “Father.” “And knowing you would do something you believe is wrong, you still did it. You must have had a good reason.” “Selfishness. Did you not hear me? I, I, I. Everything for myself. I found a reason to continue my existence and I took what did not belong to me, and still, even now, talking to you, I know I will not give her up.” “Accept your nature, Mikhail. Accept yourself as you are.” Mikhail’s laughter was bitter. “Everything is so clear to you. You say I am one of God’s children. I have purpose, I should accept my nature. My nature is to take what I believe is mine, hold it, protect it. Chain it to my side if necessary. I cannot let her go. I cannot. She is like the wind, open and free. If I caged the wind, would it die?” “Then don’t cage it, Mikhail. Trust it to stay beside you.” “How can I protect the wind, Edgar?” “You said cannot, Mikhail. You cannot let her go. Not would not, will not. You said cannot. There is a difference.” “For me. What of her? What choice am I giving her?” “I have always believed in you, in your goodness and your strength. It is very possible that the young lady needs you as well. You have heard the legends and lies associated with your kind for so long, you are beginning to believe the nonsense. To a true vegetarian, a meat eater can be repulsive. The tiger needs deer to survive. A plant needs water. We all need something. You take only what you need. Kneel, receive God’s blessing, and go back to your woman. You will find a way to protect your wind.” Mikhail knelt obediently, his head bent, allowing the peace of the old man and his words to comfort him. Outside, the fury of the storm abated abruptly, as if it had spent its anger and now could rest in the aftermath. “Thank you, Father,” Mikhail whispered. “Do what you must to protect your race, Mikhail. In the eyes of God, they are His children.

The hurricane was almost upon her. If she didn’t leave right now, dragons on the lost continent would die. Dragons who might one day be her friends, if she saved them. Dragons who had no idea what was bearing down on them, because there was no one there to warn them. Yet. Clearsight took a deep breath, vaulted into the sky, and pointed herself west. Her mind immediately started flashing through all the ways she could die in the next two days. This was why she hated flying in storms. They were too unpredictable; the smallest twitch of the wind in the wrong direction could send her plummeting to the rocks below, or drive a stray palm branch into her heart. Don’t think about that. Think about the dragons who need you. The other vision was fading; the one where she flew southeast and hid. In that one, she’d arrived on the lost continent in the hurricane’s aftermath. The images of the devastation and dead bodies would be hard to shake off, even if she prevented them in reality. Will they believe me? Will they listen to me? In some of her visions, they did; in some, they didn’t. All she could do was fly her hardest and hope. The hurricane fought her at every wingbeat, as if it knew she was trying to snatch victims from its claws. Rain battered her ferociously. She felt like she’d be driven into the endless sea at any moment. Or maybe she’d drown up here, in the waterlogged sky. But this was only the outer edge of the storm; there was far worse still to come. Clearsight was trying to reach land before the really terrible fury behind her did. She couldn’t stop, couldn’t slow down for a moment. At one point she glanced back and saw a spout of water sucked into the air. In the middle of it, an orca flailed desperately, before the storm flung it away. A while later, after the sun had apparently been swallowed for good, Clearsight saw an entire hut fly by her, then splinter apart. She had to duck quickly to a lower air current to avoid the debris. Where had it come from? Who had lived in it? She would never know, her visions told her. And then, when Clearsight was beginning to lose all feeling in her wings, she saw a shape loom out of the clouds ahead. A cliff. Land. A lot of land. A whole continent, in fact.

You mentioned how all marriages have Category 5 moments, and how you didn’t think your previous relationship would have made it through those moments. I think about that sometimes. About what could make one couple survive a Category 5 moment, but a different couple might not. I’ve thought about it enough to come up with a possible reason. Hurricanes aren’t a constant threat to coastal towns. There are more days with great weather and perfect beach days than there are hurricanes. Marriages are similar, in that there are a lot of great days with no arguments, when both people are filled with so much love for each other. But then you have the threatening-weather days. There might only be a few a year, but they can do enough damage that it takes years to repair. Some of the coastal towns will be prepared for the bad-weather days. They’ll save their best resources and most of their energy so that they’ll be stocked up and prepared for the aftermath. But some towns won’t be as prepared. They’ll put all their resources into the good weather days in hopes that the severe weather will never come. It’s the lazier choice and the choice with greater consequences. I think that’s the difference in the marriages that survive and the marriages that don’t. Some people think the focus in a marriage should be put on all the perfect days. They love as much and as hard as they can when everything is going right. But if a person gives all of themselves in the good times, hoping the bad times never come, there may not be enough resources or energy left to withstand those Category 5 moments. I know without a doubt that we’re going to have so many good moments. No matter what life throws at us, we're going to make great memories together, Quinn. That's a given. But there's also going to be bad days and sad days and days that test our resolve. Those are the days I want you to feel the absolute weight of my love for you. I promise I will love you more during the storms than I will love you during the perfect days. I promise to love you more when you're hurting then when you're happy. I promise to love you more when we're poor than when we're swimming in riches. I promise to love you more when you're crying than when you're laughing. I promise to love you more when you're sick than when you're healthy. I promise to love you more when you hate me than when you love me. And I promise . . . I swear . . . that I love you more as you read this letter than I did when I wrote it. I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you. I can’t wait to shine light on all your perfects.

There are emergency preparedness plans in place for earthquakes and hurricanes, heat waves and ice storms. There are plans for power outages of a few days, affecting as many as several million people. But if a highly populated area was without electricity for a period of months or even weeks, there is no master plan for the civilian population.

Admittedly, careful reading of each man's final treatise, Jomini's Summary of the Art of War and Clausewitz's On War, blurs the sharp distinctions some like to draw between their respective thoughts on success in war. It reveals the ironic twist that, in their theoretical approaches to the study of conflict, Jomini is more Clausewitzian, and Clausewitz more Jominian, than many people believe. Jomini is often, and unjustly, depicted as rigid, methodical, and legalistic in his approach to military theory. Yet, in the opening passages of his magnum opus, he defends himself against such accusations. the ensemble of my principles and of the maxims which are derived from them, has been badly comprehended by several writers; that some have made the most erroneous application of them; that others have drawn from them exaggerated consequences which have never been able to enter my head; for a general officer, after having assisted in a dozen campaigns, ought to know that war is a great drama, in which a thousand physical or moral causes operate more or less powerfully, and which cannot be reduced to mathematical calculations.1

Similarly, Clausewitz is often, but erroneously, characterized as eschewing rules of war altogether. While On War is best known and highly regarded for its introduction and evaluation of the moral and psychological aspects of war, Clausewitz does devote a significant portion of his classic work to the presentation of strategic and tactical principles.2

The fundamental difference between Clausewitz and Jomini is that while the Prussian roamed in the psychological and philosophic domains of battle, peering into the metaphysical darkness whence come the intangible but nevertheless omnipresent components of combat, Jomini was more concerned with the more immediate character of war as it exists, and so dealt more with the tangible, less with the philosophic.3

For Jominians, the duty of theory is to uncover these immutable truths and to advocate their adoption and use. In the words of Jomini himself, "convinced that I had seized the true point of view under which it was necessary to regard the theory of war in order to discover its veritable rules, . . . I set myself to the work with the ardor of a neophyte."5 The Jominian school acknowledges that the nature of war is complex and dramatic, and that, consequently, its complete mastery is truly an art form. However, the strategy of war is scientific, knowable, constant, and governed by principles of eternal validity.

To borrow a concept from the emerging science of chaos and complexity, Jominians are predominantly "linear" thinkers regarding the conduct of war. They believe in a certain causality, or predictability, of actions taken in war. That is, they believe that similar inputs produce similar outputs. Translated into the language of strategy, if a given plan of attack is devised and executed in accordance with veritable principles of war, it will necessarily produce victory time and again. Believing, as they do, that strategy can be reduced to a science, the Jominians tend to be more prescriptive than heuristic in their presentation of military theory. In other words, Jominian theories tend toward teaching soldiers how to act rather than how to think. Theory should provide answers to the warrior facing the daunting prospect of battle.6

In contrast, the Clausewitzian tradition views the practice of war from a more "nonlinear" perspective.7 Similar inputs, or strategies, often do not produce similar outputs, or desired end-states. War's natural uncertainty makes it impossible to guarantee that what worked yesterday will work tomorrow. Two plus two will not always equal four. This unpredictability demands that any theory of war be more heuristic than prescriptive since "no prescriptive formulation universal enough to deserve the name of law can be applied to the constant change and diversity of the phenomena of war."8 As Clausewitz continued, "Theory should be study not doctrine. . . . It is meant to educate the mind of the future commander, or, more accurately, to guide him in his self-education, not to accompany him to the battlefield."9

Thus, the Clausewitzian school insists that the primary function of military theory is to provide the intellectual methods by which to unveil the answers to war's perplexing questions rather than provide the answers themselves. It should nourish a commander's mental faculties so that he proceeds to find solutions on his own, despite the menacingly uncertain environment in which he must operate. "Continual change and the need to respond to it compels the commander to carry the whole intellectual apparatus of his knowledge within him. . . . By total assimilation with his mind and life, the commander's knowledge must be transformed into a genuine capability."10 (emphasis added) Military theory is meant to be an intellectual stimulant, not a battlefield checklist; it is the means by which to transform knowledge into capability.

Clausewitzian theorists seek to develop a mind-set, or way of thinking, rather than to prescribe rules of war; in the former lies the key to victory in the midst of war's fog and friction.

War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. . . . The commander continually finds that things are not as he expected. . . [These uncertainties] continually impinge on our decisions, and our mind must be permanently armed, so to speak, to deal with them.11 [emphasis added]

The Clausewitzian school seeks to permanently arm the military commander with "genius," which the Prussian himself defined as "a very highly developed mental aptitude for a particular occupation." In the profession of war, this mental aptitude represents a psychological strength that entails a harmonious balance of intellect and temperament and allows one to function in the presence of uncertainty.12 Furthermore, this aptitude can be developed. "That practice and a trained mind have much to do with it is undeniable."13 Thus, Clausewitzians share the belief that the genius of war can be defined and should be taught, a cherished conviction similar to the Jominian belief in the principles of war.

I'm still a prisoner of my own contradictions, pulling my inner self towards two different directions and looking out the window of a house with no doors. I cannot stop the rain or the terrifying storm, the only path for my boat is to sail until it hits the shore or wrecks, for I fear the storm more than the aftermath but I will not willingly move away from it.

In the shell-shocked aftermath of the election, President Obama, looking shaken, appeared in the White House Rose Garden to deliver public remarks intended to project a sense of calm—a sense, really, that the basic stability of the country remained intact. “The sun is up,” Obama said. “I know everybody had a long night. I did as well. I had a chance to talk to President-elect Trump last night—about 3:30 in the morning, I think it was—to congratulate him on winning the election.

As many masters viewed this moment, then, if they had acted from humanitarian considerations, they would have retained slavery, because of the protection and sustenance it afforded

After all, a New Orleans newspaper observed several years after the war, the transplantation from Africa to North America had “humanized” the Negro, regenerating him in body, mind, and morals. Rather than confess any misgivings about their slaveholding past, most masters at this moment viewed themselves as decent men, good Christians who had performed a useful, necessary, and benevolent task, fulfilling an obligation to an inferior people which more than compensated for the labor they had received in return.

As for punishing Confederate leaders, blacks may have sung about hanging Jeff Davis to a crab-apple tree but a black preacher came closer to capturing popular feelings: “O Lord, shake Jeff Davis ober de mouf ob Hell, but O Lord, doan’ drap him in!” Except for the confiscation of land, most freedmen saw little to gain by the punishment of ex-Confederate leaders; on the contrary, some feared that an aroused white populace would surely visit its rage on the most vulnerable targets—the newly freed slaves.

Elizabeth Keckley, who had worked as a maid for Davis, thought singling him out for punishment was simply irrelevant to the noble cause that had prompted her to leave his service. “The years have brought many changes,” she reflected; “and in view of these terrible changes even I, who was once a slave, who have been punished with the cruel lash, who have experienced the heart and soul tortures of a slave’s life, can say to Mr. Jefferson Davis, ‘Peace! you have suffered! Go in peace.’ ” Regardless of how blacks had viewed the war, most of them could concur with the idea of amnesty for Jefferson Davis, if only because they intended to remain in a society made up largely of people of his color and outlook.

Jim Cashman welcomed his former master back, offering him the same courtesies and warm hospitality any southern gentleman might extend to a visitor and proudly reciting his achievements. “The Lord has blessed us since you have been gone. It used to be Mr. Fuller No. 1, now it is Jim Cashman No. 1. Would you like to take a drive through the island Sir? I have a horse and buggy of my own now Sir, and I would like to take you to see my own little lot of land and my new house on it, and I have as fine a crop of cotton Sir, as ever you did see, if you please—and Jim can let you have ten dollars if you want them, Sir.

Who says I’se free? I warn’t neber no slabe. I libed wid qual’ty an’ was one ob de fambly. Take dis bandanna off? No, ‘deedy! dats the las’ semblance I’se got ob de good ole times. S’pose I is brack, I cyan’t he’p it. If mah mammy and pappy chose for me ter be brack, I ain’t gwine ter be lak some white folks I knows an’ blame de Lord for all de ’flictions dat comes ’pon ’em. I’se put up wid dis brackness now, ’cordin’ to ol’ Mis’s Bible, for nigh on ter ninety years, an’ t’ank de good Lord, dat eberlastin’ day is mos’ come when I’ll be white as Mis’ Chloe for eber mo’! [Her mistress had died some years before.] What’s dat, honey? How I knows I’se gwine ter be white? Why, honey, I’se s’prised! Do you s’pose ’cause Mammy’s face is brack, her soul is brack too? Whar’s yo’ larnin’ gone to?

The problem is, sometimes the path we need, is the one that hurts us the most. It’s unfair really, how life works against us, and we don’t even realize it’s happening until we’re thrown into situations we are forced to be in. Situations that wrap us up in a wrath like a deadly tornado and then when we’re finally out of it, all we are left with is immense destruction. The worst part of it all is knowing had we listened to our inner sirens, perhaps we could have avoided the storm and its aftermath.

the few stragglers still stumbling around in the aftermath of the blinding. The stragglers cried for mercy. Their eyes had been burned out of their sockets. They flailed for anything to grab onto for security. Mikael and the Destroyer stood in the center of the square. Mikael looked up and prayed, “El Shaddai, God Almighty, the Most High God, El Elyon, possessor of the heavens and earth, bring down your wrath!” With that prayer, the Destroyer lifted his massive sword and plunged it into the ground all the way up to the hilt. The earth trembled and shook. The Meat Puppet lost its footing and fell to the ground. Up above, a large storm cloud gathered. Thunder cracked the sky. The Sodomites circled the angels.

The 1900 Galveston storm was the worst US natural disaster in the twentieth century. The city, population 37,789, was submerged in 8 to 15 feet of water, and prior to the wind destroying the Weather Bureau’s anemometer, the last recorded wind velocity was 84 miles per hour. It is speculated that during the height of the storm the winds ranged from 120 to 150 miles per hour. Historians estimate that over 6,000 people were killed in the city and that another 1,000 perished on the rest of the island. On the mainland, the death toll was approximately 1,000. The Promise is a work of fiction but I tried to keep the depiction of the island, the sequence of the storm, and the aftermath grounded in fact as much as possible. A great deal has been written about the city of Galveston but very little about the people who lived outside of the city limits.

DeBlieux recalled. “And then they didn’t. We heard on the portable radio that we had already been evacuated. That was priceless.” In the storm’s chaotic aftermath, power lines fell, cell phone towers collapsed, and the communications infrastructure was decimated,

Situations that wrap us up in a wrath like a deadly tornado and then when we’re finally out of it, all we are left with is immense destruction. The worst part of it all is knowing had we listened to our inner sirens, perhaps we could have avoided the storm and its aftermath.

We were both quiet. No rainbows in the house. This little four-year-old had just articulated the perfect way to think about the mission of our work. Storms will come—they inevitably do. But in the aftermath, there can be something beautiful. But you only get to the rainbow by going through a storm.

What happened?” I started to trace the area, but Storm shifted away from me and righted her shirt. “Car accident.” She kept her eyes averted. I might have said it was the effects of the awkward aftermath of a first time, but something told me it was more. She didn’t like to talk about the scar. Why? What had happened? I wanted to know. I wanted to know every goddamn thing about her.

The uppermost thought in every one’s mind before the Yankee invasion of our Parish was, what will be the conduct of the slaves. The most important consideration for all of us now that the invasion has swept by, is what conduct are we to pursue to them? … Some offences have been committed that cannot be atoned for but by death. Others may be safely expiated by the lash or other corporeal punishment. Others may safely be left to the milder discipline of the plantation. The punishment for each proper to its kind, should be inexorably and unflinchingly afflicted.

What, then, was “freedom” and who was “free”? The fluctuating moods of individual masters, unexpected changes in the military situation, the constant movement of troops, and widespread doubts about the validity and enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation were bound to have a sobering effect on the slaves’ perceptions of their status and rights, leaving many of them quite confused if not thoroughly disillusioned.

In nearly all instances of slave violence against their owners, whites tended to blame the Yankees, as did Emma Holmes, for having aroused “the foulest demoniac passions of the negro, hitherto so peaceful and happy.” At least, such explanations preserved whites from what would have otherwise been a most excruciating self-examination.86

With a fine ironic twist, many a master and mistress thus managed to turn the trauma and financial loss of black freedom into deliverance from the chains that had bound them to their black folk. Cornelia Spencer, a prominent resident of Chapel Hill and a future educator, hailed emancipation for the benefits it would bestow upon all whites; slavery, she insisted, had been “an awful drag” on the proper development of the South. “And because I love the white man better than I do the black, I am glad they are free.” Nor could she help but add, “And now I wish they were all in—shall I say Massachusetts?—or Connecticut? Poor things! We are doing what we can for them.

On A. F. Pugh’s plantation, an enterprising former slave accumulated a cartload of articles from several neighboring plantations and bartered them with other blacks in the vicinity; the overseer was powerless to stop this apparently flourishing business based on loot.

We work so hard and get nothing for our labor but jes our ’lowance, we ’bleege to steal,” a South Carolina slave explained in 1863, “and den we must keep from dem ebery ting or dey suffer us too much. But dey take all our labor, and steal our chil’ren, and we only take dare chicken.

No I wont whip you. Never no more. Sit down thar all of you and listen to what I got to tell you. I hates to do it but I must. You all aint my niggers no more. You is free. Just as free as I am. Here I have raised you all to work for me, and now you are going to leave me. I am an old man, and I cant get along without you. I dont know what I am going to do.

To Robert P. Howell, a North Carolina planter who had lost a number of slaves, the behavior of Lovet “disappointed” him the most. “He was about my age and I had always treated him more as a companion than a slave. When I left I put everything in his charge, told him that he was free, but to remain on the place and take care of things. He promised me faithfully that he would, but he was the first one to leave … and I did not see him for several years.” To the wife of a prominent Louisiana slaveholder, the most troubling defection was that of “a colored woman born in the same house with me, always treated as well as me, always till my marriage slept in the same bed with me, and now, she is the first to leave.

How vice and wickedness, injustice and every human passion runs riot, flourishes, oftentimes going unpunished to the tomb! And how the little feeble sickly attempts of virtue struggle, and after a brief while fade away, unappreciated and unextolled! The depravity of the human heart is truly wonderful, and the moiety of virtue contained on the historic page truly deplorable. If she found any consolation in her readings, it was only to know how often “these same sorrows and unmerited punishments that we are now undergoing [have] been visited upon the brave, the deserving, the heroic, and the patient of all ages and in all climes!” Returning to the history that was being acted out in her own household, she bemoaned the abolition of slavery as “a most unprecedented robbery,” intended only for the “greater humiliation” of the southern people. “However, it is done,” she sighed;

With the appearance of the Yankees, the restlessness and reluctance to work he had observed during the past several months suddenly flared into “wild confusion” and “a general stampede.” In less than six weeks, more than twenty slaves left him (he estimated his loss at nearly $22,000), and those who remained might as well have gone, “they being totally demoralized & ungovernable.” Like the field hands, the servants worked erratically if at all: “the females have quit entirely or nearly so, four of the men come & go when & where they please.… I talk to them Earnestly but fear it will do no good.” Some six months later, “a wretched state of idleness” prevailed, and Bills found himself unable to exert any control. After still another six months, he conceded that slavery on his plantations was “about played out.”69

After a Richmond slave denounced Jefferson Davis and refused to serve any white man, a local editor demanded that he “be whipped every day until he confesses what white man put these notions in his head.” There had to be an explanation which slaveholding families could accept without in any way compromising their self-esteem or the fundamental conviction that slavery was the best possible condition for black people. To pretend that the Yankees instigated slave aggression and enticed and forced slaves to desert their masters proved to be a highly popular explanation, since it contained a semblance of truth and conveniently evaded the hard questions. “The poor negroes don’t do us any harm except when they are put up to it,” Eliza Andrews thought. “Even when they murdered that white man and quartered him, I believe pernicious teachings were responsible.

Less than two years after the fall of Richmond, a Massachusetts clergyman arrived in the city with the intention of establishing a school to train black ministers. But when he sought a building for his school, he encountered considerable resistance, until he met Mary Ann Lumpkin, the black wife of the former slave dealer. She offered to lease him Lumpkin’s Jail. With unconcealed enthusiasm, black workers knocked out the cells, removed the iron bars from the windows, and refashioned the old jail as a school for ministers and freedmen alike. Before long, children and adults entered the doors of the new school, some of them recalling that this was not their first visit to the familiar brick building.

I jump up an’ scream, “Glory, glory, hallelujah to Jesus! I’s free! I’s free! Glory to God, you come down an’ free us; no big man could do it.” An’ I got sort o’ scared, afeared somebody hear me, an’ I takes another good look, an’ fall on de groun’, an’ roll over, an’ kiss de groun’ fo’ de Lord’s sake, I’s so full o’ praise to Masser Jesus. He do all dis great work. De soul buyers can neber take my two chillen lef me; no, neber can take ’em from me no mo’.

Once the Yankees arrived, masters and mistresses detected examples of such behavior almost everywhere—in the defection of the favorites, in the demeanor and language of the slaves who remained, in their refusal to submit to punishment, in their failure to obey orders promptly (or at all), and, most frequently, in their unwillingness to work “as usual.

But a Tennessee slave, named Jule, who claimed not to fear the Union soldiers, had some different ideas. As the Yankees neared the plantation, the mistress commanded the slaves to remain loyal. “If they find that trunk o’ money or silver plate,” she asked Jule, “you’ll say it’s your’n, won’t you?” The slave stood there, obviously unmoved by her mistress’s plea. “Mistress,” she replied, “I can’t lie over that; you bo’t that

Sam and Evaline Brodie came out on the porch and stood side by side facing their more than 150 slaves. “You could hear a pin drop,” Mary recalled, “everything was so quiet.” After greeting them, the master explained why he had called them together. “Men, women and children, you are free. You are no longer my slaves. The Yankees will soon be here.” There was no more to be said. The master and mistress went back into the house, picked up two large armchairs, placed them on the porch facing the road, and sat down to wait. “In about an hour,” Mary recalled, “there was one of the blackest clouds coming up the avenue from the main road. It was the Yankee soldiers.

Until I saw and conversed with the greater number of these persons,” a northern reporter wrote from South Carolina, “I believed that the appearance and intelligence of Southern field hands were greatly libeled by the delineators of negro character at the concert saloons. Now I cannot but acknowledge that instead of gross exaggerations the ‘minstrels’ give representations which are faithful to nature. There were the same grotesque dresses, awkward figures, and immense brogans which are to be seen every night at Bryant’s or Christy’s.

I have been with them a great deal,” he wrote from Louisiana, “and never before saw so much of gloom, despondency, and listlessness. I saw no banjo, heard none but solemn songs. In church or on the street they impress me with a great sadness. They are a sombre, not a happy, race.” Several weeks later, when his regiment was encamped near Baton Rouge, he attended a black religious service and described the “mingled excitement and devotion,” the shouting, the clapping of hands, the jumping, the often wild and excited singing. It all impressed him, however, as “a mournful joy,” and the hymns seemed “more a loud wail than a burst of joyous melody.

I seen our ’Federates go off laughin’ an’ gay; full of life an’ health. Dey was big an’ strong, asingin’ Dixie an’ dey jus knowed dey was agoin’ to win. I seen ’em come back skin an’ bone, dere eyes all sad an’ hollow, an’ dere clothes all ragged. Dey was all lookin’ sick. De sperrit dey lef’ wid jus’ been done whupped outten dem.

As I was going along this afternoon,” a young Massachusetts officer wrote from New Orleans, “a little black baby that could just walk got under my feet and it look so much like a big worm that I wanted to step on it and crush it, the nasty, greasy little vermin was the best that could be said of it.” And if anything, additional exposure to blacks appeared to strengthen rather than allay racial antipathies. “My repugnance to them increases with the acquaintance,” a New England officer remarked. “Republican as I am, keep me clear of the darkey in any relation.” Praying for an early end to the war, a Union soldier stationed in Missouri declared that he had had his fill of colored people. “I never want to see one of the animals after I leave here.”51

If few slaves yearned for a Confederate victory, they did nevertheless view themselves as Southerners, they did sense that their lives and destinies were intricately bound with the white people of the South, and some even shared with whites the humiliation of defeat. “Dere was jes’ too many of dem blue coats for us to lick,

Some of them were scarred from head to foot where they had been whipped. One man’s back was nearly all one scar, as if the skin had been chopped up and left to heal in ridges. Another had scars on the back of his neck, and from that all the way to his heels every little ways; but that was not such a sight as the one with the great solid mass of ridges from his shoulders to his hips. That beat all the antislavery sermons ever yet preached.

Henry T. Johns, the well-meaning and sympathetic Massachusetts soldier, frankly confessed near the end of the war, “I know I always revolt at shaking hands with a darkey or sitting by him, but it is a prejudice that should shame me.” To free the slaves, he recognized approvingly, was to grant them equality. “There is no help for it, and the sooner we get rid of our foolish prejudices the better for us. In me those prejudices are very strong. I can fight for this race more easily than I can eat with them.

They had sung these verses before but there was no longer any need to conceal what they meant by them; the words had not changed, only their immediacy, only the emphasis with which certain phrases were intoned. “Now they gradually threw off the mask,” Washington recalled, “and were not afraid to let it be known that the ‘freedom’ in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world.”4

when her master’s son returned and ordered the slaves to destroy the cotton lest it fall into the hands of the Union Army, they refused to cooperate. “Why for we burn de cotton?” they asked. “Where we get money then for buy clo’ and shoes and salt?” Rather than burn the cotton, the slaves took turns guarding it, “the women keeping watch and the men ready to defend it when the watchers gave the alarm.” In some instances, however, slaves who resisted removal were shot down, even burned to death in the cotton houses. On Edisto Island, where a Confederate raiding party had tried to remove some blacks, “the women fought so violently when they were taking off the men,” a white Charlestonian wrote, “that they were obliged to shoot some of them.”18

Manigault, like so many plantation managers, came to discover that the always arduous task of controlling enslaved workers took on new dimensions under wartime conditions. His own slaves would teach him that much and more.

But the slave’s perception of his master and mistress, based on years of close observation, and the information he gathered from a variety of alternative sources provided ample grounds for skepticism if not outright disbelief. Even with a limited access to the news, many slaves dismissed the atrocity stories because they simply made no sense. “Massa can’t come dat over we,” a Georgia slave told a Union officer; “we know’d a heap better. What for de Yankees want to hurt black men? Massa hates de Yankees, and he’s no fren’ ter we; so we am de Yankee bi’s fren’s.

I’d always thought about this, and wanted this day to come, and prayed for it and knew God meant it should be here sometime,” a Savannah slave declared as she shook her head in disbelief, “but I didn’t believe I should ever see it, and it is so great and good a thing, I cannot believe it has come now; and I don’t believe I ever shall realize it, but I know it has though, and I bless the Lord for it.”37

If the Florida government knew they had hundreds of dead bodies on the first day of the hurricane Ian aftermath and approximately ten thousand reported missing, then it is likely the final death toll will be in the many hundreds to thousands.

It emerged in the hurricane Ian aftermath that flooded electric cars may be hazardous.

For some, the aftermath of hurricane Ian was akin to being in a third world country.

There was a massive emergency response to hurricane Ian’s aftermath in Florida.

How many are dead was the big question in the aftermath of the hurricane Ian Florida disaster.

I have been there, in the world of no electricity, on many occasions—in the aftermath of hurricanes in Houston, in the face of faulty equipment in northern California, after an ice storm in New England. You learn to cope, eating food out of a can and using the water you hopefully stored in your bathtub once you realized a problem was coming. My Houston neighbors maintained one analog phone, which was handy if you wanted to call an airline to see if you could fly somewhere else until electricity was restored—that is, if you had sufficient gasoline to get to the airport, because gasoline pumps need electricity to dispense fuel.

When faced with a challenge (be it a hurricane or a struggling business or a reluctance to start writing), we must decide to act and then we must act. We should perceive our worries as an indication that we should meet our challenges head on, cut right to the heart of them, and take action. Otherwise, we’ll be in the aftermath of the storm, sitting and staring at that old tree that’s collapsed onto our patio, and asking, “Well, what now?

the great hurricane of 1935. Roosevelt had sent veterans to build a highway connecting Key West to Miami, and they tragically perished in the strong storm. “A horrific aftermath,” she’d continued. “The lost souls, without refrigeration, without transportation . . . there was no way to give them a proper burial. The only option was to burn the bodies.

Following the July 1919 race riot in Washington, DC, Johnson investigated and offered this assessment of how and why peace was restored. “The Negroes saved themselves and saved Washington by their determination not to run but to fight, fight in the defense of their lives and their homes. If the white mob had gone unchecked—and it was only the determined effort of black men that checked it—Washington would have been another and worse East St. Louis.” The violence in DC was sparked by a rumor that a white soldier’s wife had been raped by a Negro. The city was filled with military men back from World War I. It also had been filling for some time with blacks migrating out of the South in search of something better. On a hot Saturday in mid-July, hundreds of white veterans rampaged through DC’s black neighborhoods. The violence continued two more days, peaking on Monday after an editorial from the Washington Post urged “every available serviceman to gather at Pennsylvania and Seventh Avenue at 9:00 p.m. for a cleanup that will cause the events of the last two evenings to pale into insignificance.” White servicemen answered the call and stormed through black neighborhoods in the southwest and Foggy Bottom. But the going was tougher in northwest Washington, DC, where the forewarned community was barricaded in and well-armed. As the mob approached, Negroes answered with a barrage of gunfire. The mob scattered. In the aftermath, cars were found riddled with bullet holes. Dozens of people were seriously wounded and one black man died by gunshot. Black gunfire certainly helped staunch the mob.

If we are living in a calm aftermath that isn’t accompanied by repentance, confession, and listening, then we might as well tie ourselves to the banisters and wait for the second wave of the storm to come back around.

I sat her on my lap and drove across the Mississippi, where the SPCA was holding animals temporarily in large heated tents-the kind you see pitched in a neighbor's yard for a wedding. In the aftermath of the storm, they had rescued over 8,500 animals. Sixty-two percent were pit bulls.

Sometimes love wasn’t about the storm. All booming thunder and flashing lightening. Sometimes it was the quiet aftermath. Sweet breezes, warm sun, and a rainbow of hope.

Lord Jesus, thank You that You are always with me, even when I don’t feel it. You are my Lord and my Savior. Right now, I give You the pain of what happened to me. I give You the pain of (name it). All of it. I receive Your healing oil in my heart, and I forgive everyone who has sinned against me. I renounce bitterness, doubt, and any unbelief that the devil has sown in my heart during this storm. Restore my heart, my strength, and my life in the aftermath of this storm. I know in whom I believe. You are my Healer, my Comforter, and my Lord, and I trust You with my life. Amen!

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