Friday, June 03, 2011

Massachusetts rises to the occasion in the face of tragedy

The full impact of this week's wild weather in Western Massachusetts is now becoming fully apparent, and we're finding the images truly shocking.

Storms like these normally don't happen here in Massachusetts. Just look at this YouTube video of the awesome power of the storm as it ravaged Springfield. Incredible.



One of the best representations of the aftermath that we've seen so far is this photo gallery in today's Boston Globe. We found these pictures especially moving - some of them because of the violent power of Mother Nature they showed, and others because of the equally strong power of human compassion they depicted.

Our hearts go out to all of the victims of this tragedy as they try to get back on their feet and rebuild their lives.

We also give credit to a very impressive response by state officials to the situation, including by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick. Much like he did during the MWRA broken pipe crisis, Patrick is showing himself to be a capable manager of a crisis in this situation, and we give him credit for being hands-on and on-the-scene.

We also want to thank members of the media for their role in protecting the public during the storm. We're news junkies, and we have to admit we had been following the recent severe weather outbreak as it tore across the country. Much like their mid-western counterparts we watched livestraming in recent weeks, local meteorologists were on-the-job telling people to keep an eye to the sky and to hunker down when storms got close. We watched NECN meteorologist Matt Noyes all afternoon, and there's no doubt in our minds that his attentiveness and on-air warnings saved lives in this storm. Kudos to him and his colleagues for a great job.

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