This is not the post I planned for today. Plans changed when wildfires broke out all around Austin yesterday.
If you read this blog regularly, you know it’s been a long, hot summer here. It’s the dryest and hottest we’ve been in close to 100 years. And now, it’s windy. Put the dry, the hot, and the windy together, shake ’em up, and you have perfect fire conditions.
Texas is burning.
This is the daily fire danger map for September 4. Not a bit of white space in the whole state.
I’ve seen plenty of jokes about the fires, most of them along the lines of God sending the fires as a message to Rick Perry. Well, this disaster crosses party lines. Love the state or hate it – and I often vacillate between those two feelings, frequently in the same day, or even hour – people are losing everything.
And I feel helpless. Small. Not enough.
Originally, I was planning to write about the exact opposite today. I was going to link with Just. Be. Enough. and talk about one of the ways I’ve learned to accept that I am enough. As Sunday night wore on, however, and I sat glued to Twitter, Facebook, and the local news, I started to feel lonely. I felt anything but enough.
I was scared. Still am. Worried for my friends who live in Steiner Ranch, an area that has been completely evacuated and is suffering massive fire damage. Devastated for the Bastrop, Texas area, where over 15,000 acres are burning and 400 (that we know of) homes are destroyed.
Morning brought sleep deprivation and anxiety, as we face another day of high winds and extreme fire danger. I look at the greenbelt behind my house, and the one across the street, and I see kindling. There’s nothing but dry trees and dead brush out there. So yes, I’m concerned. But in spite of getting very little sleep, I’m extremely alert. The sound of the wind, always eerie, is plain scary today.
Through this fear, though, I felt something else emerge: resolve. Maybe I’m not enough to fix this mess, this disaster that is way out of my hands. But I am enough to do something. So I will. I will donate where I can, volunteer where needed. I will be enough. Because that’s what we do.
One at a time, all of our enoughs add up.
One way Austin area bloggers are being enough is by working together to raise awareness of relief efforts. Starting tonight at midnight, there will be a linky available on this blog and on many others, where we can all link posts with information about donating and volunteering. We can also share stories of triumph over the fires, and offer words of support.
All writers and bloggers are invited to link their own posts about support for Texas wildfire recovery. We will be writing, tweeting and sharing our posts on Facebook using the hashtag #TXBlogFireRelief. Please keep an eye out for posts tomorrow and come back to link up your own wildfire-related post, or to help us spread awareness of the area’s recovery needs.
Unfortunately, even if the winds stop, we won’t be out of danger until we get a lot of rain. And clear out a lot of dead brush. So the Austin area bloggers will continue to post updates periodically. We can’t make the rains fall or the winds stop. But we can help. We can be enough for all of the people facing months (years?) of rebuilding.
Please come back tomorrow to link and/or help spread the word.
This post is linked to the Be Enough Me for Cancer project, sponsored by Bellflower Books and Crickett’s Answer for Cancer. For every 20 linked up posts, Bellflower Books will provide a memory book to a woman fighting breast cancer through Crickett’s Answer for Cancer, and help bring a smile to courageous women giving it their all, every single day. The link up remains open for three days. No blog? No worries. You can also comment on the post or on the Just.Be.Enough. Facebook page with your own story and be counted.
Lapsed homemaker. Looking to hire a full-time housekeeper who will work for the sheer joy of a job well done and free coffee. Interested parties, DM please. 
This is a great idea! FL was on fire earlier this year. It made me CRAZY that no one outside of the state seemed to know or care about it. It never made the national news. Yet people were losing their homes, and some even lost their lives. The smoke was so thick in our area we could not be outside.
http://www.thewriterrevived.com/2011/06/summer-of-smoke.html
I can understand your frustration, and I think it is awesome that you are doing this! Good luck, and I’ll be hoping for rain, and lots of it!
Wow. I am speechless. That map is so scary. And other parts of the country are deluged by water right now. Devastating. Thank you so much for bringing this to the forefront of our consciousness.
Oh my! I didn’t know that Texas was having such a bad year with fires. I’m sorry for the anxiety it has caused you. But I’m glad that you are doing what you can. I’ve noticed if everyone just does what they can it really adds up to making a difference!
I will be sending the Pacific Northwest Rain Gods down your way!
I’ve been gone for a few days so I did not know that this was even happening.
You’re so right that even though we may feel small as a single person, all of us together can make a difference. And that? Is more than just enough.
You’re a good person Missy.
I love this message so much, that everyone working together can be enough, even if we feel small and inadequate on our own. What an amazing post for JBE; thanks for linking it up.
I will be thinking about you and Texas as a whole and hope that everyone stays as safe as possible.
I’m so glad you linked up and I hope the blogosphere can help you feel a little less alone tonight. It’s amazing that up here in Chicago, it’s barely a blip… That map is incredible.
Thinking of you and all of Texas.
That’s enough power to fuel others in reaching out and helping those affected by the fire. I saw this on the news today and it looks bad. Stay safe and I have Texas in my prayers!
We drove through wildfires on the way to our vacation and it was so eery. I can’t imagine the worry with so many homes in the path. I’ll link up.
Missy, you and the other bloggers are doing a great thing. I hope your efforts get the support it needs. Good luck!
And thank you for linking up with JBE.
As a native Texan, this is devastating. Hoping all of these efforts and positive thoughts will end the wildfires soon.
Yet another excellent way of putting the power of social media to work. I hope your efforts pay off and bring some much-needed relief to those poor families who are either in danger of losing everything or who already have.
Yikes! I didn’t realize the TX fire situation was so bad. I’m so sorry. Stay safe. I’ll support #TXBlogFireRelief any way I can.
Like you said, at times like this I feel so small and helpless. It’s so great for bloggers to help in any way we can – one of the best things about blogging, really. All we can do is pray that it is, in fact, enough.