5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Read!!, October 26, 2004
This review is from: The Flood of the Millennium: (The Real Story: The Survivors) (Paperback)
Disasters happen every day -- someplace in the world an airliner crashes, a fire sweeps through a city, famine claims lives in small villages, or horrendous storms change landscapes -- all transforming lives forever.
Newspapers print thousands of inches of copy, journalists broadcast minutes and hours filled with emotional words and horrific photos or video, and the internet whisks millions of bytes documenting human pain and suffering through cyberspace.
Information overload makes it too easy to forget the individual stories of victims and victory. But survival is part of the human condition and stories of survival serve as remembrances for what has been lost and provide hope for the future.
Janet Elaine Smith has done a remarkable job in showing a heartbreaking story of one such disaster. But "The Flood of the Millennium," is not a tale of woe.
This book is a testament to ordinary people doing extraordinary things in the face of danger and hardship.
The winter of 1997 had been a record-breaking year for the residents of Grand Forks, North Dakota. The people of this town were reeling from eight blizzards -- the worst ever recorded. More than 100 inches of snow had fallen and then an ice storm disabled the city with power outages that lasted for weeks in some of the smaller outlying communities.
On April 17, 1997, the residents began preparing to face nature's fury -- but not without a fight. As a volunteer working at one of the larger evacuation shelters, Grand Forks Air Force Base, Smith skillfully recounts the stories of people who lived through the worst flood the town had ever experienced.
Written in a crisp, fresh style, Smith places the reader there in the midst of wailing sirens, resonating bullhorns, evacuations, and reports of flooding, fires, and a city suddenly hit with the irony of no water in the midst of overflowing dikes. It reads like some script from a disaster movie. But Smith doesn't stop there.
Ignoring her own personal fears of what the future might hold, she gathers stories of others, creatively weaving together emotions and personalities of people faced with uncertainty of tremendous loss -- houses, cars, personal belongings. And yet, they bond together under the efforts of numerous volunteers.
Smith shows the unselfish spirit and deep sacrifice made by those who provided care, comfort, nurturing, and solace to more than a thousand residents, many of whom had special medical needs.
She easily relates the unselfishness of people opening their homes to strangers and feeding and caring for them while meeting more than just their physical needs. The story she shares is more than just a survival story. As she says in the book, the Good Samaritan was no longer just a story in the Bible.
Even though this small book is about a very large disaster, Smith aptly focuses on the positive and does a good job in showing how humor played a major role in coping. Instead of lamenting their situations, she shows how many folks really do seek the positive. One example of this is how the people living in temporary shelters eventually decided to focus on friendships rather than watch the constant news once the coverage began repeating stories.
It's obvious that she sacrificed much to help record and keep track of those being cared for as well as filling in wherever there was a need. Yet it is the courage and sacrifice of others that speaks loudest throughout her lively narrative.
For those of us fortunate enough to have never faced the threat of losing everything, Janet Elaine Smith gives us a glimpse into that possibility. Yet her sensitive treatment of and respect for those victims turned victors allow us to see the inherent good found in those who are in need and the unlimited unselfishness that abounds in those meeting those needs.
Reviewed by Francine Biere for The Coffee Cramp Reviews
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