From Disasters Come Community

The first night, it was an adventure. Light candles, play cards, talk, read a book, enjoy the silence. No TVs. No stereos. No bleeping computers. Just life, shared with those who make it worthwhile.

The first morning, people emerged blinking from their cold and darkened homes, staring in amazement at the fallen wires and splintered trees, sheathed in ice, dazzling in the sun. Instinctively, folks who barely know their neighbors began to work together on a massive cleanup chore.

Today the sun rises on thousands of Inland Northwest homes that still lack power. It’s getting very cold indoors and it may not seem quite as much fun.

But there is more to do, and more to rediscover about the old and fading arts of being a community. Self-sufficiency is part of it, because after a natural disaster like Tuesday’s ice storm the government doesn’t have enough employees to remove every branch from the road or supply every stricken household with aid. Interdependence is part of it too, because there are many who lack the tools, skills, funds or physical strength to deal alone with a debris-strewn neighborhood and a powerless house or apartment.

The elderly, especially the ailing and those who live alone, are now in serious need of the neighborly help that has fallen out of fashion with the frantic busy-ness of two-career households and the social disconnectedness of a society that logs on, plugs in and vegges out in front of its flickering video screens.

Do you know a widow who lives alone? An elderly couple struggling with Alzheimer’s? They might need you right now, and if you bring the kids along to help, another generation will learn by example the essence of community.

But restoring our communities to normalcy will take more than the hands of thousands of volunteers. A professional’s skill with a chain saw, often acquired in careers that collect more than their share of political abuse, suddenly is prized by people of every political persuasion.

Local governments, another political whipping post, are reminding us all that some taxes pay for essential services. All over the region public employees cleared roads, extinguished fires, directed traffic, rescued the injured and coordinated emergency-response plans.

Public and private electrical utilities, commonly bad-mouthed for rate increases and salmon-stopping dams, suddenly are recognized as providers of a commodity on which all of us depend more heavily with every passing year.

We need each other. Natural disasters have a way of showing how great is our interdependence and how wise it is, once in a while, to say our thanks.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Webster/For the editorial board