Author: Sharron Burnett

In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina George W Bush, Republican, and Bill Clinton, Democrat, joined together to raise funds to help New Orleans rebuild from the devastation of that storm. I was awed by their willingness to set aside political differences in a common cause for the good of people who had lost so much. It was the kind of effort that I believe demonstrates the compassion and greatness of our nation. 

I witnessed the same kind of cooperation during and after hurricane Harvey that flooded my city and suburban towns with over fifty inches of rain over the course of several days. Everyone living here knew numerous people whose homes filled with many feet of water. We all sat inside our houses watching the incessant rain that never stopped and hearing of friends and family members who had to abandon their neighborhoods and homes walking in waist high water to safety.

People came together both before and after the horror without regard for personal beliefs or preferences. We worked as one to make sure that everyone would be okay. Images of people of many races and religions doing everything possible to insure the safety of others are permanently etched in my mind. I was very proud of my city and the fact that nobody became mired in “them and us” kind of thinking. Republicans and Democrats alike worked for the common good, Religious folks and atheists were as one. No labels prevented the people of the city from working together. 

I also know that the recovery took time, many months in fact. For some it would be years before they once again felt normal. FEMA had offices for the duration, doing its best to help the people both short term and long term,. It was a glorious demonstration of what is the very best about the people of our city and the entire nation because help came from all parts of the United States. 

Today we see people suffering from the devastating effects of hurricane Helene while a new storm called Milton seems to be barreling toward an area in Florida that was already hit by Helene. Meanwhile there are people in Houston still waiting for companies to rebuild their fences and roofs that were damaged in early summer by hurricane Beryl. Climate change has made the exceptional the rule this hurricane season and it’s time that we remember how to work together rather than making a natural disaster a political football game. 

Here are some truths that must be addressed immediately…FEMA is responding as quickly as possible in every case, but is running out of funding due to the high volume of destruction this year. This is not because money was diverted from FEMA to housing for illegals, but only because there have been so many destructive storms this year. Added to that is the fact that almost thirty Republicans voted against a bill that would have provided additional funding to FEMA only days before Helene struck. Now the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, refuses to call a special session of Congress to address the monetary needs. Instead he insists that it would be wrong to call back the representatives this close to an election. 

I can’t imagine the kind of thinking it takes for people to create an environment of divisiveness in the midst of an emergency. I am up to my eyeballs in disdain for the partisan gaming that is dividing us into tribes, phony groups of “them and us.” What is the purpose of pulling us apart and making us believe that we can’t work together anymore? 

The trouble seemed to begin during the Covid pandemic when we had politicians making fun of those who wore masks and attempting to demonize the medical community. At a time when we should have been together the epidemic became political. From there it morphed into efforts to force us all to live alike. A kind of hatefulness has tainted our relationships with one another and our willingness to understand and treasure all people, not just those exactly like ourselves. We have a man running for President of the United States with a platform of rancor and outright lies. Now he is using the misfortune of those caught in storms to foment even more hate aimed at innocent groups of people who have done nothing to deserve the danger in which he has placed them. 

This is something that we have to stop. We should all be insisting that our lawmakers work together for the common good, not just to pander to one group or another. We are all people caught in a dangerous storm. It’s time for us to once again have each others’ backs. Mother Nature does not discriminate in its wrath. People are suffering and need us to stop the bickering and just get things done. It will take time so we must have patience as well. We can do this one step at a time with the resolve to help not hinder. Milton is on its way. We must insist that Congress comes together to be prepared for whatever may happen.

My parents were very young and very much in love when my father died. Mama was nineteen when she married and Daddy was twenty one. There was nothing unusual about such a young bride and groom back in the nineteen forties just after the end of World War II. They were part of the generation that experienced the Great Depression as children and a world war as teens. They grew up fast back then, performing adult jobs at much younger ages than teens today. 

My father grew up moving from place to place wherever there was construction work for his father. He would enjoy the relocations and never lost the wanderlust that made him antsy if he stayed in one place for too long. He was a good student from the time he was a young boy and made his parents proud with his academic awards and knowledge of every kind of subject from sports to literature, engineering to architecture, history to mathematics. Reading, fishing, and football were his pastimes and he loved nothing more than his mother, his wife, his children, long time friends and his Texas A&M Aggies.  

Mama was the youngest child of eight children born to her immigrant parents who arrived from Austria Hungary just before the outbreak of World War I. She was beautiful, bright and had a smile that lit up rooms. To say she had charisma is an understatement. She grew up in a tiny house not far from downtown Houston and had only once ventured far from home before she met my father. She was the apple of her mother’s eye and my father’s as well. He claimed that he fell for her the first time she flirted with him when they worked together at the same company. She boasted that she set her cap for him because he was intrigued by the quiet young man who was studying to be an engineer. 

They were a set of complementary bookends, perfect in the ways that they brought out the best in each other. While my father was known for his genius and intellect, Mama was every bit his equal and he treasured her wit and her willingness to understand his dreams. They were best buddies who were very much in love. 

My mother began driving when she was nine years old. She was not afraid of the devil himself and worked as a telephone operator on a switchboard and as a secretary for judges and college professors before she was even twenty one years old. Once I came along she settled into the traditional role of a wife and mother, never once seeming to miss having a career. I always thought that my father’s joy of talking about the newest thing he had read or learned kept her mind active even as she devoted herself to the duties of a housewife. 

Together my parents created a kind of fairytale life for me and my brothers. At least that was how it seemed until the last year of my father’s life when even I as child felt tension building in the quiet unspoken moments. We embarked on a journey of promise to California that would end in a kind of hell. It was a tough year for everyone, including my baby brother who reacted with long crying bouts that seemed to be inconsolable. What had seemed like a dream opportunity for my parents turned out to be less than happy for any of us. We were soon heading back to Texas in a kind of personal odyssey that seemed so uncertain. Then came a ray of hope again and my parents seemed to heel quickly from the anxieties that had marked the circular journey. 

We were back in Houston and my father had a job that was providing him with contentment once again. Mama was singing and dancing and the two of them were holding hands wherever they went. The world seemed so right as we looked for a home to purchase and had seemingly settled on one that was lovely. My young parents of thirty and thirty three were going to celebrate their eleventh anniversary and Mama’s birthday with a kind of relief that everything was looking rosier than it had in months. 

My mother spent the day before my father died preparing to launch the summer vacation with a family gathering at the beach. She baked cakes and prepared her famous baked beans. She made her special recipe barbecue sauce for Daddy to use when he grilled the burgers the following day. Of course her delicious potato salad was already chilling in the refrigerator along with the soft drinks that would fill our ice chest the following morning. The joy that had always marked our family was in full bloom as we anticipated a future that seemed so bright. 

Of course, not of that was to be. My father was in a car accident and did not make it home. The unreality of it still haunts me today. The gift that he had purchased for my mother for their anniversary was waiting on the top of a table. The card that he had slipped into the mailbox to demonstrate his undying love for her was on its way. They lamps that he was going to give her as a surprise one her birthday only needed one more payment to come home. Life was so normal and then it was not. 

My mother never fell out of love with my father, nor did I. He was one of a kind, and we never found a replacement for him. He would dwell in our minds when we listened to his music, pored over his books, gazed at the engineering projects he had completed. We kept watching Texas Aggie football and loyally cheering for the team. We recounted his jokes and the things that he had taught us. We gazed at the photo that showed the joy that existed between him and my mother. She kept his spirit alive and well and reminded me and my brothers of how much he loved us all. I was just old enough to know that she spoke the truth.

My parents were both quite incredible. My father will forever be a young man. My mother grew into her old age. Somehow though I think of them together and I remember their laughter and their joy in sharing music and travel and family. I am content in knowing how wonderful they both were and how loved they made me feel.     

I recently viewed a video of a group of teachers watching the debate between Tim Walz and J. D. Vance. When Walz challenged Vance to answer whether or not Donald Trump had accepted his loss in 2020, Vance attempted to use an elaborate word salad to downplay the series of events leading to the January 6 storming of the Capitol. As the educators listened to Vance’s  meandering and wishy washy response they began to cackle in disbelief. Their reaction demonstrated their important ability to recognize BS when they see or hear it and I too laughed in total unity with them. 

Anyone well versed in history knows that there are often attempts to downplay past wrongdoings by dressing them in misleading descriptions. The American Civil War has been sometimes portrayed as a group of southern states fighting for and losing a glorious cause. The facts demonstrate something far different, however. The secession documents all of the Confederate states point to slavery as the main cause of the rift between the Union and the Confederacy. Letters, speeches and editorials all point to preservation of slavery as the driving force of the split, but post war many myths arose to soften the reality of what had happened. 

So too it is with the events of January 6, 2020 and the involvement of Donald Trump. Eye witnesses can see and hear with their own eyes that it was an attempt to overthrow the election results that was led by Trump from even before the votes had been counted. It is a fact that Donald Trump strong armed multiple people, including then Vice President Mike Pence to change the slate of electors in his favor. When he realized that Pence was unwilling to conspire with him, he then taunted his followers to riot. 

Luckily our democracy survived. Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi performed their duties as described in the Constitution and Joseph Biden became the President of the United States. In the meantime four years of attempting to hold Donald Trump accountable for his transgressions have been thwarted by political gaming and a total revision of what actually happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Now we have Trump followers asking us to believe that he did nothing wrong in spite of the mountains of evidence to the contrary. The gaslighting of the nation has been so successful that Trump now appears to have another shot at regaining the White House and wiping the stain of his actions from history as though they never happened. 

While the video of the teachers laughing at Vance’s bold evasion of the truth made me laugh, the situation in which we find our country makes me angry and anxious. I truly fear that so many people have been misled that a traitor to everything that is sacred about our nation may regain the highest office in the land. Such would be a travesty, a low point and danger in our country and way of life. I am not certain that our nation would be able to endure having a bonafide traitor and liar in the White House, especially one who is so prone to lying to the people for his own power. 

There is no other issue that needs to be discussed in this watershed moment! Nothing is more important than holding Donald Trump accountable for his criminal acts for the purpose of overthrowing votes of the American people. He was willing to disregard the Constitution and the laws of the land to take down the government. He has spent the last four years making absurd claims and growing more and more frightening in the process. His criminality and instability make him unfit for any office, much less being the leader of our nation. 

I have attempted to hold back my language and sense of urgency because Trump himself spouts enough hyperbole to fill the universe. I have tried to quietly and logically inform people of the dangers that lie ahead if Trump wins this election. I had hoped that by now his support would be dwindling as people seriously listened to him and his running mate Vance. Instead he remains unremittingly believed and supported by a large population of voters. In some cases he is even revered as the only hope of our nation. 

There are indeed problems in our nation today. There are always issues that need to be addressed. The economy is persistently in our thoughts. Our strength on the world stage is a topic that never goes away. We have avoided serious discussions of immigration for decades but know that we cannot continue to do nothing. We have been unserious and far too contentious with each other as Donald Trump leads the attempts to tear us apart. We must vote for the very heart and health of our nation. No other issue matters! If we want the United States of America to survive we have to send Donald Trump and those who are following and lying for him a clear message. We must demonstrate that those who would destroy our democracy or ignore our Constitution are not welcome! Donald Trump must be shunned as the traitor and criminal that he truly is. 

My words are strong because I have reached the point of understanding how dangerously close we are of being swindled by a grifter who does not care about us or the United States of America. We cannot allow Donald Trump to get his way once again. We must not pretend that January 6 was just a little misunderstanding that does not matter when it is everything! 

Please think about our country. Please vote for what is right and just. We can worry about those other issues later. For now we are the only ones who can save our nation. That means voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The time for putting country first is now!

It was April of 1970 when the crew of Apollo 13 headed for the moon. I was still as excited about space travel as I had been in Mrs. Colby’s science class when her enthusiasm for human travel in the universe infected me with a thrilling sense of the possibilities for the future of mankind. All along with most of the I world have watched the first American going into space, the first American going into an orbit, the first American men on the moon. I was not any less enthusiastic about the journey of the crew of Apollo 13, but I was in the last months of pregnancy with my first child and so her impending birth distracted me from anything that was happening beyond my tiny little world of prepping to be a mom. 

The crew of James Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise had been training for months for a walk on the moon when Swigert developed measles and had to be quarantined. Those were the days when none of us who were adults had enjoyed the wonder of a measles vaccine. Many of us contracted measles when we were children but Swigert had the terrible fate of getting sick just when he was scheduled to take off for a journey to the moon. Rather than delaying the trip the decision was made to replace Swigert at the last minute with Ken Mattingly and proceed as planned. 

There were some whose superstitious natures worried about calling the mission Apollo 13. After all we don’t have thirteenth floors in buildings and sometimes skip we that number in the ordering of seats on planes. Having a crew member become ill at the last minute seemed to portend trouble, but the crew and those who would monitor them in Mission Control scoffed at any idea that the fates were somehow doomed. On April 11, 1970 the crew hurdled toward the moon after a seemingly perfect launch. 

There were far fewer journalists covering the journey than there had been with the Apollo 11 mission when the first humans walked on the moon. Somehow the very concept of space travel had become seemingly more ordinary. We expected everything to go according to plan and so most of us went about our daily routines only peripherally paying attention to the third group of men scheduled to walk on the surface of the cold and craggy orb that we see in the night sky. 

Of course now we know how drastically things changed two days into the mission when an oxygen tank ruptured in the service module disabling electricity and the life support system. Suddenly the goal was not to walk on the moon but to get the crew back to earth safely, a venture that nobody ever dreamed of happening. The whole world watched with rapt attention as the engineers had to devise solutions to one problem after another on the fly. 

Those of us who were watching the coverage in real time remember the dire warnings and the tension that hovered over the entire world. We’ve seen the movie directed by Ron Howard with Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise playing the astronauts. We saw each problem unfold in living color on a big screen and thankfully know that the crew eventually made it back to earth safely. We now realize that they were in far more trouble that we might have once thought but all ended well and we moved on and grew older even as we never forgot that intense moment in time. 

Now there is a new documentary streaming on Netflix called Apollo 13: Survival that recounts the terrifying journey with films from inside the spacecraft and Mission Control at the NASA space center in Houston, Texas. Narrated by the actual people involved in that incredible adventure, it is a glance back at a time when none of our technology was as advanced as it now is. Viewing the inside of the spacecraft with the grainy and sometimes blurry film only emphasizes how far we have progressed since 1970. It is truly a wonder that the engineers and the crew were able to keep cool heads and make it back to the home base of earth. 

I found this documentary to be one of the most emotional films that I have ever seen. Even knowing the outcome in advance I was breathless through most of it. I marveled at the courage and calm of the crew who knew that they had only one shot at making it to the only place in the universe where they might survive. The earth became a spiritual place for them and for me as I watched the engineers using every ounce of their intelligence and engineering skill to handle every difficulty that seemed destined to end badly. Their work was perhaps one of the most extraordinary feats of engineering in the history of the world. 

I won’t spoil the details of the documentary but I will recommend that everyone watch this amazing film. It will take you to a kind of meditation about life and who we are as people that will be as uplifting as being born again. It is a tribute to courage and ingenuity and to our very planet that will leave you in awe. I know that I was in tears by the end of the film and even days later I can’t stop thinking about it and wondering why we are wasting so much time these days bickering instead of solving life and death problems as they arise. Jame Lovell’s commentary at the conclusion will most assuredly leave you feeling a kinship with all of humanity and with the planet that is our only hope for survival. Watch Apollo 13: Survival and you will understand what I mean.

One of my all time favorite books is Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson. It is the heartbreaking true story of the 1900 hurricane that devastated Galveston, Texas leaving thousands dead and ending the golden era of the once prosperous town. It focuses on the hubris of Isaac Cline, a meteorologist who chose to ignore warnings about the impending hurricane and instead insisted that the citizens would be safe in their homes. 

Of course we now know in hindsight that Cline was wrong. The ferocious storm toppled houses and buildings alike, leaving citizens adrift in a terrifying sea of rubble. Cline lost his home and his wife and his reputation in the aftermath of destruction. The theme of the book is one as old as humanity itself, namely that unfettered hubris can be deadly. 

My home city of Houston is the prosperous place that it is because Galveston never returned to the glory of it’s days as a center of commerce and trade. The little town along a ribbon of bayous would dredge a pathway over fifty miles long to create what would become one of the the largest ports in the United States. With railroads crisscrossing the landscape and the new waterway bring ships filled with goods, the city was destined to become the behemoth that it now is. Nonetheless even fifty miles inland the danger of powerful storms still lurks. 

I have spent a lifetime watching anxiously from June through October for storms in the Caribbean that might make their way into the Gulf of Mexico. I have memorized a litany of hurricanes that affected me and my city. Sadly we still have a bit of hubris much like Isaac Cline in thinking that we have seen the worst, dodged bullets and will ultimately be just fine. Yes, we suffered greatly during hurricane Harvey but we had the grit to make our way back. Sadly there is little evidence that we took that storm as seriously as we should have and a great deal of evidence that we are still taunting nature. 

I had the good fortune to be spared any damage from the many hurricanes that I have experienced but I have been inside homes ravaged by wind and rain. I have seen what six feet of flood water does to people’s possessions and well being. I have labored in the muck retrieving ruined photos and diplomas. I have washed clothing and dishes in an attempt to return the sodden items to a usable state. I have cried for those who lost so much only to feel threatened again and again as hurricane season rolls back around. 

What I have not seen is a united effort in changing the way we do things so that we might stall the changes of climate that are making weather related events more and more dangerous and deadly with each passing year. We seem as unwilling to face the reality of our situation as Isaac Cline was a hundred and twenty five years ago. We continue to build in places that were once buffer zones. We tear down trees, pour miles and miles of concrete, own multiple cars, create mountains of trash and pretend that those warning us of the consequences of our inaction are just party poopers trying to steal our joy. 

This summer the Houston Metropolitan area experienced an earlier than usual hurricane that was only a Category 1 storm. Nonetheless millions of people were left without power for days and weeks. The roofs of home were torn off, fences went down, trees fell across roads and sometimes toppled buildings. It has taken months to repair the damage and some are still waiting for workers and materials to arrive. 

Now hurricane Helene has spread unprecedented horror across multiple states leaving even towns hundreds of miles from the Gulf of Mexico devastated beyond anything that anyone might have imagined. One of the most beautiful cities in our nation, Ashville, North Carolina, has been left unrecognizable with flooding that nobody there has ever before seen. The mountain town is cut off from the rest of the world with impassible muddy roads, no power, and dire needs. 

When will we face the reality of what is happening and unite in our efforts to make a difference in how we treat our planet earth? When will we all make the needed sacrifices to change the projection of our destiny. Yes, there will still be storms, tornadoes, droughts, fires, but if we strive for a more sustainable way of living perhaps they will not be as numerous or as powerful. We can turn back the inevitable if we all pitch in. It’s time we work ahead of time rather than only in the aftermath of destruction. 

We have been warned for decades but we have brazenly ignored the truth. We make excuses like a child, insisting that we should not have to take the lead in doing what is right if other countries are not even trying. We want what we want when we want it without considering what our choices may be doing toward the destruction of our planet. 

When James Lovell was hurtling toward the Earth in a spacecraft so damaged that it might not make it home, he gazed at the beautiful blue orb with a realization that changed his life. He understood that the only safe place in the nearby universe was Earth. He understood that the only hope for humankind is to nurture the place where we live. There is no alternative so we need to get things right. It is past time for us to stop fighting and complaining and work together to heal the wounds that we have inflicted on each other and on our planet. We can no longer pretend that “It’s just what it is and the way things have always been.” We have the power to change if only we have the will.