Life's gales can't blow us away

Wednesday's belligerent blast did more than level massive trees, crush houses and vehicles and knock out power to tens of thousands of households. It made life more miserable than we mere mortals deserved.

Seriously, as if COVID-19, a coup attempt at our nation's capitol, impeachment proceedings against the president and all-time-high anxiety before the wind storm were not enough to test our mettle.

Well, hear this, Ma Nature.

You huffed and you puffed and maybe you did blow us down, but guess what? We got back up.

And by golly, that was a pretty good exercise providing a nifty reminder.

We can really grate on each other even without any outside help. Masks vs. no masks. Vaccines vs. no vaccines. Mandate enforcements vs. no mandate enforcements. Trump vs….

Think we'll just skip that last one lest heads explode.

What the force of nature reminded us as the yellow tape, chain saws and Avista Utilities crews appeared seemingly everywhere quite magically is, we're a resilient species. We can go through hell and come out with a little sunburn.

With some help from our friends.

And strangers.

North Idaho College instructor Carol Kelly shared this horrifying moment with The Press:

"I headed in to teach my 8 a.m. class, and right after I parked on the street on the southeast side of the Hedlund building rather than in the parking lot (what I thought would be farther away from the trees), a couple of the BIG ones came down. It was the most harrowing experience I've ever been through. I had gotten out of my Jeep when I heard the crack, and I looked up and just ran. The people across the street were yelling to come to them. I reached their driveway and turned around, and the tree had fallen right where I'd been standing."

Nobody Wednesday was checking party affiliation or gender identity. The wind's roar was countered by the roar of chain saws, neighbors helping neighbors, citizens stepping up to clear driveways, yards, public streets and alleyways.

Our region looked like a war zone, but again, there's a reminder.

When we pull together, we're pretty hard to beat.