Even though I am thousands of miles away, I have been following the monster that is Katrina. My heart goes out to the people of Louisiana and Mississippi. I thank God that he spared the Big Easy one more time. If you don’t believe in miracles, now would be the time to rethink that. How was it possible that a giant storm headed straight for the big city was diverted in the last minute so that it merely brushed it? Would you call that luck? I do not think so.

Still, it gives me a heartache just imagining what it would be like to stand before what’s left of your home, or to sit somewhere in a shelter, with your 4 kids around you, not even being able to find out for an undetermined period of time if you still have a home to go to. Yet people like that go back every time (see Hurricane Andrew stories) and rebuild it, and start over again. In my mind, they are the true American Pioneers of our times. God bless them all!

Maybe if you are old enough you might remember this cartoon: Fables from the Green Forest, based on the stories by Thornton W. Burgess, a japanese animation from the 70s. The tune stuck with me through my adulthood, and when I came upon the title for this blog, it was the first thing that came to my mind. Sadly all I can remember is “In the Green Forest, na na na, in the Green Forest….”.

And this blue jay would always show up, in each episode, screaming: “Good news, good news for every one, above or down below, for Master Winsome Bluebird’s come to whistle off the snow!” For today’s 7 yr. old hardly fascinating anymore.

So strange how this flood came, out of nowhere really! Just about a week and a half ago we were still in Innsbruck (post about that with pics coming soon). We were standing on this very bridge, and the waters of the Inn looked nothing like this:

Here are some more pics of the flood that raged in Tirol and Voralberg (beautiful Austrian alpine regions), they speak better than words:

Tourist Village

Water gushes through the village streets

Near Ischgl

An island in the mountains

courtesy of the Kurier.