Millions of colliding cloud particles shape a single raindrop. In a storm billions of raindrops fall in any square mile.  A persistent steady rain becomes a flood. A hurricane carries about 250 million tons of swirling water, creating a deluge that washes away the work and hopes of human hands, the flowers in the fields, the creatures foraging for a meal, every contaminant buried in soil.

We cannot justly rail against nature or beat back the waters. We can only hope and weigh the risks. Less the waters overwhelm us, we search for higher ground and turn to care for what is right at hand – a baby’s cry, a child’s hunger, and elder’s chill, a need for silence, a shoulder to share the burden, a welcomed embrace.  Never soon enough, the waters level their way back to their source, an ocean vast enough to absorb its tributaries. We take in the destruction with single drops of tears then a deluge of grief, while pulling out bits and pieces of lives left in the rubble.  Mystery and paradox abound in the sorrow, as we turn to water to begin to erase the layers of sludge. A single hand can barely move the shovel in the wake of such destruction, but we become a human force of nature, rebuilding dreams and possibilities together.

https://water.usgs.gov/edu