I've not posted much about the seemingly endless tragedy folks in Japan are facing right now. It's overwhelming to me to ponder such levels of disaster. It's simply heartbreaking to think of the human toll being faced by friends and families of those known dead, or simply missing with no knowledge of their whereabouts. As a cat and dog person, I also think of the heartache folks feel about their missing animals, and the panic so many of those animals felt in their last moments. This is to say nothing of the dangerous situation with their nuclear power plants...
As with many such horrific events, the news coverage gives us glimpses of deep human strength. It also sometimes shows us that normal, everyday actions can seem enormously dramatic. Witness the 83-year-old woman who was alerted by the tsunami sirens and got on her bicycle to ride to safety.
To too many in our culture, it seems odd that someone that old would decide that her fastest, best mode of transport to reach a safer place would be a bicycle. I don't think it odd at all, myself, but a bicycle is my first choice in personal transportation. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that a person who has ridden as a primary transit mode for many years would think of a bicycle before getting in a car. It is far more mobile in tight quarters, and can be pushed or carried around obstacles that would stymie a motorist.
Yeah, I'd want to save my bike first, before the car. I wouldn't have to depend on a gas station with the bike.
Boulder, Louisville, and press coverage of crashes
16 years ago
1 comment:
I think you have an excellent point about the utility of bikes in emergency situations.
I think the fact that so many in our culture would find it odd for someone of a certain age to look first to her bicycle in an emergency is pretty telling about our self-imposed limitations.
Also, thank you for commenting on the animals. So often, people seem to forget the non-human lives that are lost or utterly disrupted in these tragedies. I'm sure the good people of Japan will embrace those who survive but lose their homes, just as Americans around the country did for animals of many species who lost their homes when Katrina hit. I think it must be healing to do so, both for the animals and for the people who take them in.
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