Overwhelmed, Grateful, Weary, Hopeful and Teary

That pretty much sums me up right about now.
I had a bit of frustration trying to get in to work this morning, and I am glad my windows were up, or the folks walking on the sides of the road might have heard some words that would have singed their ears.  The dude in the truck in front of me was obviously lost.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he was a volunteer looking for a place to park, but I'm afraid he was yet another lookie-loo.  At any rate, he stopped FOUR TIMES in a 2 block space, and I REALLY needed him to get OUT of my way.  I barely made it in the door of the library on time.  At least the cops had done pretty well at discouraging people from parking in the Library Staff ONLY spots.  Ya want the library open so you can use the nice restrooms?  Let the staff have their parking spots.

We don't have a whole lot of stuff coming back in yet, but that will come soon enough.   Trips to the book drop were an adventure.  There are several groups here cooking for anybody who needs fed.  The library parking lot is where the city set them up, for some reason. 

The photo at the left shows what I saw when I left the front doors of the library with my donated shopping cart (thank you, Walmart Neighborhood Market) to head for our "big green" book drop out in the circle drive.  I was sure there would be nothing in it when I got there, there's no way for people to drive up and put items in the drop.  WRONG.  There were several items in the drop.  Seems people have been parking and walking up and dropping their items in the drop.  They have also managed to find ways around the relief truck blockade and put things in our back drop that empties directly into the building. 

You can see the drop chutes in the far upper left of the photo at right, which shows cases of water that have been stacked against the back side of the library since Monday night. We are INUNDATED with supplies, and volunteers here in Moore.  Our officials are very appreciative, and are trying to co-ordinate between volunteer agencies and the governments of other cities hit by the tornadoes to maybe get some of those volunteers out to the smaller communities who were hit and REALLY need some help.  Not that we don't need help, we do, but those little towns just don't have the resources we have, and they are away from main highways, so it is harder for the media to find them.
People keep calling to find out if we are open. People come in, and are actually teary-eyed when they look around and see that their library is just like they left it the last time they were in. All the books and all the staff are OK, and still here for them.  I almost cried several times on the Customer Service Desk this morning.  Our customers love us, and we love them.   Mahlon, the young lady I was most worried about during all of this, came in today, and I hugged her SO tight. I've known that girl since she was one of our "volunteens" in Summer Reading when she was maybe 13 or so.  She's a college student now, and she is a clerk working at our South OKC branch.  She is a sweetie, and her mom is about the same age I am.  I was SO glad to see with my own eyes that our Mahlon is all right.  Bless her.  She was almost crying herself.  She's been worried about all of us, too.Thank God for Face Book and Twitter, or we'd all be a lot MORE worried about each other.
I do have a great deal of sadness, though.  Mr. Hemant Bhonde, a regular customer who always brought a smile with him, and left us smiling, was taken by the storm.  He had been ill recently, and not in as often, but we still saw him once in a while.  He always stopped to talk to me and Julie, and joked around with us.  He was from India, and worked at the GM plant.  He was also a volunteer in our Computer Training Center at one time.  He was a sweet man, and I will miss him.  I always smile when I think of him, though.  He left that legacy with his library friends, that thinking of him makes us smile.
Some of those children who died were customers that I can remember seeing in the library.  It is always especially sad to lose children, and it hits home even more when those children are ones who came up to you on a regular basis and asked for their library card number, or gave you their books to check out. Summer Reading starts soon.  There are now a few less kids to come and read with us.  We are all very sad about that.
 We are grateful for all the support and help that has been pouring into Moore.  It is very overwhelming when you are trying to do anything around our building or even our area of town, though.
Here are a few photos to prove my point:

 To the left, you see the view of our parking lot between us and the Community Center. "Big Green" is visible by the hedge on the far left of the photo.  The building with the large air conditioning units visible on top is the Community Center.  The cookers and the semi trailers are from a company based in Arkansas that has been here since Tuesday cooking and serving meals to whoever wants some.

 To the right, this is the view looking North on Howard Street from the library circle drive.  Those are customers' cars and volunteers' cars parked on a street that really ISN'T supposed to have parking on it.

 The photo on the left was taken from the south end of the drive that runs behind the library.  Those are the semi trailers full of chicken that the cookers are fixing for everybody.  I often jokingly tell customers on the phone to come get something to check out and pick up some free food while you're at it.

 To the right, you see the view out the West lobby doors of the library.  Brown building on the right is the temporary police station.  (New one is being built at Main and Broadway, will be finished sometime late this year, maybe.) Clouds and a highway full of lookie-loos.  Just what we need.

 This is the view out the staff door on the west side of the building.  Police station, Interstate beyond, and I think the farthest building there is a church across the Interstate.  Lots more vehicles than are usually in this location on a Saturday afternoon.

To the right is a view of the parking lot immediately in front of the Community Center.  As you can see, one of the fire crews had stopped in for some food, and an ambulance crew, too.  These folks have been working 12 hr. shifts with little or no downtime all week.

It means a lot to know that all these people just wanted to help our city.  Many just up and left and are giving up their Memorial Day weekend plans to be here to help take care of Moore, Oklahoma.
Many, many people have told me this week that relatives have told them they should leave, that obviously Moore wasn't a safe place to live.  They all then said what I've always said.  There's just something about this town.  The people are so special, even when they disagree violently with your politics, they still care about you, they still love you.  They look at you with tears in their eyes after something like this and say from the bottom of their heart "It is SO GOOD to see you!"   Complete strangers come and ask if they can help.  It happens every day here, you need something, someone will ask if they can help.

We are all weary of the weather right now.  Leery of it, too.  Those clouds out there were being viewed with great suspicion.  There was a slight chance of a thunderstorm here today, but any that popped up were far to the south of Moore.  Still, people are nervous.  I bet it's quite awhile before we hear our weekly siren tests again.  People's nerves are still too raw.  (And besides, they know all the sirens that are still here work.  They gave them quite a workout on Monday.)
We had people calling to ask us to check the Weather Service website for them.  A few were where they had no access to a weather radio or TV.  Some don't have smart phones, so they call us.  We are the all-purpose reference tool, after all.  (And sometimes it feels like people expect us to know everything, just because we work in the library.)  (We all know a lot of things, but none of us knows EVERYTHING.  Our heads would explode.  Seriously.  )

Those of us who were here in '99 have one advantage over the newer folks in town.  We remember how things were before that tornado, and how they were re-built even BETTER afterwards.  That's where the hopefulness comes in.  I know this town will rebuild, and I know it will be even better than before.  Our city government does all it can to help residents get the information and help they need to get their homes rebuilt safely, and the Chamber and other civic agencies help business owners.  Those of us who live here help by shopping at our local stores as much as possible.  We support the retailers that believed in Moore and put their stores here.  We really support Bill Warren and his theater because he has always believed in Moore, even though he's from Kansas, and has supported this community from the day he decided to put his theater here.  He builds all his theaters with severe weather in mind.  (It's because he's from Kansas.  They get lots of tornadoes, too, you know.)
I have hope that our hospital will be rebuilt, and it will be better than before.  Norman Regional owns it, and their newer buildings are beautiful.  We are hopeful that the new hospital will be one of those beautiful buildings.  I had an appointment at the hospital Breast Care Center for next month.  They have already called me to reschedule the appointment at the Porter Road campus of the hospital.  They were even able to give me the same day and the same time.

I get teary when I think about what could have happened on Monday.  It was really, really bad, but it could have been SO much worse.   We had warning enough for most of us to take shelter, the tornado missed our large retail stores (where there were lots of people), and the kids hadn't gotten on their buses to go home yet.
I get teary, too, thinking about how close it came to my own home, how we STILL don't have a shelter (partly my fault because a good one costs so much), and well, this is all so stressful, it is making a lot of us teary.  Like I said, customers come in and tear up because they are so glad we are still there, and the books are still there, and I get teary because our customers are all right, and it IS good to see them.
It makes me tear up when all the ex-pat Okies I know start raising funds to send to the relief efforts, and how so many tweeted and messaged on Face Book, and emailed and called to see if we were all right.  I get choked up when Matt hears from the barbecue cookers who want to come and cook for folks.  They are here and serving lots of hot meals to people who might not otherwise have one.  Matt has done a lot to get the cookers in touch with folks who may need them.  He also spent the day helping clean Veteran's Memorial Park.  I'm proud of him.  He pretends this stuff doesn't upset him,  "Shit happens" he says, but I know deep down he really cares, and he wants to help make things more normal for folks, too.
Another emotional thing going on today was all the pictures people are finding in their yards and bringing to the library so the folks who are looking to reunite them with their owners can collect them.  Sad, mud-spattered, some edges torn, some water damaged. Wedding photos, Basic Training portraits of young servicemen and women, portraits of children, somebody's photo ID from work, all little pieces of someone's life.  And you find yourself hoping the people in the pictures are OK, and that they'll be getting those pictures back soon. That's my prayer for my little adopted home town.  That the people are all OK, and that they'll be getting those little pieces of their lives back in order real soon.
And maybe the lookie-loos will grow up and stay out of the way for awhile, and then we can get somewhere on I-35 again, maybe the volunteers will get better organized and not park all over Howard Street so we can almost not drive through, and then maybe I'll be able to get to work in less than five minutes again.  (Unless there's a train.) In other words, we'll find our "new normal" and get on with life.