The Storm

We have had a few big storms over the past few years here in Porto Alegre, but this weekend was one to write about. We ended up with a damaging cyclone early Saturday morning. It started raining here late Thursday night and we didn't get a break (just a few minutes) until mid-morning Saturday. Since then it has stayed cloudy and has rained consistently. In fact, it is raining as I write this post.

Today we went to Cachoerinha (cash-o-air-een-ya) for worship with the Salgado family and on the way we visited with Paulo Renato (Paulo has been going out to the Salgado's with us for worship for a couple of months now). Paulo was telling us about the effects of the storm that he experienced. He told us that the C.A.S.A. that we are renting has been without electricity since the early hours of Saturday morning. That wasn't a surprise because we knew that most of the population of the greater Porto Alegre area was without power for most of Saturday (approximately 20,000 homes)! He said that 2 large trees fell on top of a house and 3 cars just across the street. No one was hurt, but there was a lot of damage. As we continued on our way we saw billboards completely destroyed and lots of debris scattered throughout the streets.

I read about some of the damage that the storm/cyclone caused over the weekend in today's paper. There are some pretty amazing and yet scary statistics recorded. From 12 am Friday until 9am Saturday we received 5.77 inches of rain (it looks much worse when you see the metric number of 146.6 mm and when you see stranded cars in the streets!). That may not seem like much rain, but it is 122.2% of Porto Alegre's average rainfall for the month of May. So, it is much more than what we typically get. Most of the problems and damage was caused by the cyclone winds. They were recorded at 62 mph (100 km/h) on Saturday morning. At about 3am Saturday morning I ran down to the garage to find that the garage door had been blown open by the winds! They ripped up trees all over the city. I read that one individual stopped his car on Saturday morning to help move a fallen tree out of the road and was hit by another falling tree in the process. Unfortunately, he was killed. I haven't heard of any other fatalities due to the storm, but I know that approximately 300 people had to completely abandon their homes.

We had some minor damage at our house, but nothing worth mentioning. In the wake of this storm/cyclone I feel compassion, confusion and awe. I have thought a lot about the folks who live on the street and don't have any shelter or warm clothing. I have thought about the families and individuals who have been stranded or have been forced to leave their flooded homes. I have though about those who have been wounded or killed.

Storms like this leave me praying for those who are in these difficult situations, yet I am in awe of the Lord's powerful hand to bring such forceful winds and rain. I can't wrap my mind around what it must have been like to be a disciple of Christ in the boat on those tossing seas or to be on the Earth when the flooding rains came in the time of Noah. This storm wasn't really that big, but it disrupted a lot of lives. I sort of feel like I am rambling now, but it makes me think about how we need to be and should be in awe of God's mighty hand. Whether engineering a beautiful landscape of snow-peaked mountains or bringing torrential down pours He is amazing - he is powerful in the storm.