As a kid, I hid in the basement, in Michigan, with my family, flashlights, radio and water during a tornado warning. In my 20s, while driving to my home in Florida, I saw two twisters. One black and one white. Fortunately I was never in the direct path of any tornado.
While in Southern California, I was caught in a flash flood in downtown Whittier. It seemed more of an adventure crossing Main Street than a danger. I also experienced my first earthquake while living there.
When I was told of their hail storms, in Oklahoma, I turned down moving there.
In Sri Lanka, there was the tsunami, which flooded my house a block away from the beach. Fortunately I was visiting my daughter in California for Christmas. I’ve often wondered if I had been in Sri Lanka at the time, would I have gone to the beach with my camera?
Now in Lake County, when I hear a helicopter overhead I get worried. Very worried. After all it’s fire season. One of the last times I heard helicopters overhead was during the Mendocino Complex Fire in 2018 when I had to evacuate for two weeks. Definitely not a fun time.
While living in Sri Lanka I had not heard one single helicopter until a day in May, 2003. I asked around why a helicopter was passing overhead. It was because of floods and landslides in a nearby mountain area.
One thing led to another and I got involved gathering water and goods for survivors. Locals rallied and donated what they could. One man told me his village had cleaned 200 plastic bottles and filled them with fresh water for donation.
I traveled in a van with 13 Buddhist monks on the aid mission. They had me sit in the back alone, while they sat crammed together. It was a rule not to sit next to a woman so they stopped and picked up a young boy who sat next to me and then they put a monk next to him, which made a little more room for the others.
We drove for quite a while. I, of course, brought my camera. The scenes of flooding were disturbing. Mud everywhere. Trees bare as if water had stripped the leaves, leaving only skeletons. One home, or the part that remained, teetered at the top of a rise, with crumbled walls and insides at the bottom near the road.
At one point we had to go on foot and cross a stream on a hastily built bamboo raft. It was narrow and when I stepped on it along with Santamanasa Thero, the monk who was teaching me the Singhala language, it tipped. Instinctively I grabbed Santamanasa’s shoulder to steady myself. He said, “No, no,” and he quickly told one of the helpers to get on the raft. I could hold on to the helper, rather than the monk. That worked and tradition was upheld.
We continued on and finally came to the village that had been washed away. One young boy stood on what was left of the foundation of his house. His father and brother had been eaten by the wall of water and mud. His mother had gone crazy with grief and shock and was hospitalized. The village chief said the villagers were taking care of him. But the boy’s eyes said differently. His soul wasn’t being taken care of, he was lost.
I had a hard time keeping my emotions under control as did Santamanasa. He choked up, unable to speak.
We walked around as the others distributed the aid we had brought in a lorry. I saw a photograph that had curled itself around a tree twig. Muddied. A picture of four young women, all in colorful saris, all smiling. I left it where it was. Seemed sacrilegious to move it.
After that, I floated as if in a dream. Helping where I could. We drove on to other villages and the lorry driver and his helpers handed out goods to the villagers.
The drive back to the hotel where I lived was quiet. No one spoke.
Helicopters ever since then have instilled fear in me. Before that time in Sri Lanka they had just reminded me of the sound track for the film “Apocalypse Now.”
What’s a girl to do?…when I hear a helicopter flying overhead, I check my apps to find out what’s going on or call my editor who always seems to know what’s happening.
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
