We've been here before

I am transfixed by the flooding Mississippi River the way you can't look away from a horrible multi-vehicle accident on the highway. The devastation is massive and only going to get worse. With all the large-scale natural disasters we've seen recently you can almost comprehend the apocalyptic believers. Almost.
But all of these astonishing disasters happened before. In fact, if you read the news articles about them, they tell you. (Although the news outlets seem to be having trouble with 1927 and 1937 in the Mississippi flood story. From what I can tell --and I wasn't around back then-- the "Great Flood" was in 1927, not 1937.) Anyway, the news carries references to "the Mississippi flood of 1927, known simply as the 'Great Flood',[which] cost a total of $230 million -- the equivalent of $2.8 billion today -- although there was far less infrastructure and agriculture in place at the time."
If you were able to follow the news in the wake of the immense tragedy in Japan, you may have seen this tidbit, "Ancient stone markers warned of tsunamis-- Tablets served as a reminder for many of the danger that can follow earthquakes." As far back as 600 years ago the people of Japan were watching the ocean every time they felt the earth move.
And while the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama and her neighbors were record-setting (not in a good way), there was a record to be broken, dating to 1974.

There are two lessons that I mean to impart here. One, that these terrible natural disasters are not a sign of the end of the world. And two, that we humans struggled through back then and will do so again, no matter how bleak it appears.

Of course a donation to the Red Cross can't hurt either.