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Diamonds to the Salvation Army Wilkes-Barre Corps and to all the other regional organizations and individuals responding to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene. If you even casually glanced at national weather maps during the storm’s reign of destruction, you know it covered much of the nation’s southeast, dumping enormous amounts of rain that prompted widespread flooding. People have been cut off in remote areas, making food and water scarce. Many still struggle with not knowing where loved ones are. Phone service, including cells, has been severely curtailed, making even the communication of need difficult. Local Salvation Army volunteers are joining the organization’s national Emergency Disaster Services network to support survivors, and we have no doubt other area organizations, both independent and affiliated with national relief agencies, are similarly pitching in or will be soon. This is an enormous and immediate need, and anyone who can help should chip in.
Coal to politicians and pundits who have already begun using the Helene disaster as political fodder. Some partisans have accused Washington and the Federal Emergency Management Agency of foot-dragging the response. Please. The storm made landfall Sept. 26. The death and destruction stretch through six states, causing problems — by one estimate — across more than 600 miles. The very nature of the damage left people unable to travel or be reached due to road collapses or blockages and unable to relay their situations to those who might help. Doubtless, there have been failures in either the preparation for or execution of emergency response, and we trust future reviews will recognize them and appropriate changes, if needed, will be made. But accusing the emergency response system of failure a week into such an unprecedented disaster is, at best, misguided. The needs of victims should be everyone’s priority. The blame game can wait.
Diamonds to the Greater Wyoming Valley Area YMCA for adding a pool ramp that expands accessibility at the Wilkes-Barre Family YMCA. It likely isn’t common knowledge, but such ramps are becoming a routine design feature for public pools, such as those in new schools. But it is a pretty recent trend, and we almost certainly have far more pools without this access feature than with it. Here’s hoping the Y sparks ideas elsewhere and sets a trend.
Coal to another week of bad choices, poor behavior and outright criminal intent relayed in our pages. Ashley police charged a Hazleton man with stabbing the boyfriend of his estranged wife. A fight between two brothers during a football game at Kirby Park led to an arrest of firearm charges. A different pair of brothers from Edwardsville and Plymouth were indicted on federal charges of drug trafficking. And a Plains Township man pleaded guilty to possession of child sexual abuse material. We believe that, overall, there is more good in our area than there is bad, and all of these examples are narrowly local problems that almost certainly could have been prevented with a little effort by those involved. However, as we note periodically in this space, when so many of these examples are reported in so short a time, it can get a bit hard to remain positive.