Hurricane Sandy Reaches Kansas
by Rachel Creager Ireland
Weather here is typical for February, dreary and cold.
How big was the destruction caused by hurricane Sandy? This Kansas girl got a lesson in scale today.
There’s a man staying here at the Prairie Fire Inn and Spa who is bartering his room for labor. One of the jobs I’ve asked him to look at will require replacing some rotten wood on the exterior of one of the buildings. He says it’ll take about sixty feet of 1″x8″ wood.
I called Shep at the local lumberyard and asked him to deliver the wood, since we don’t have a truck. He said he was all out and would call me on Friday when it came in. Hadn’t heard from him on Tuesday, so I called again. The shipment had never arrived, but it was promised for tomorrow.
It turns out that the regional mills are sending 85% of the wood they mill to the Northeast, to rebuild after Sandy. 15% is remaining in the Midwest. When the shipment arrives, most of it will be spoken for by people on Shep’s waiting list, including myself.
How big was the destruction caused by hurricane Sandy? It was so big that, three months later and 1300 miles away, building materials are scarce.
We are living in interesting times, don’t you think?
It’ll have to wait.
Wow! very interesting, yes…if these crazy weather patterns continue It could mean massive shortages…good blog..
I think we have to learn to get by in different ways. One might be having a local mill again, rather than importing all the lumber. Or using other materials more, such as reclaimed materials, locally available stone, etc. However I don’t think stone would work for the fascia . . .
so in the end it could be a good thing…
I like the Buddhist story about “who knows if it’s good or bad?” I think it’s our job to make everything into something good, as best we can.