When a Natural Disaster Gets Personal

Last Friday I drove home from work under a wide blue sky. Squinting against the early evening sun, I lowered the visor and sat ramrod straight in the driver’s seat, trying futilely to align my eyes with the narrow band of shade.

Earlier it had rained long and hard. My husband had called to report that he’d wrestled with the downspouts and gutters in the deluge all morning, attempting to redirect the water that would inevitably weep down the cinder-block walls of our basement.

Meanwhile, at Th...