Regarding the letter, “Time to move beyond tragedy”: I consider myself to be semi-tough, but I cried like a baby every morning for two weeks as I read the Herald’s initial coverage of the landslide. I cried in sorrow for the victims and their families, shed tears of pride for the heroics of the first responders, and wept in gratitude that my family was safe. Not how I like to start my day.
In the grand scheme of things, I guess the Oso slide wouldn’t rate very high. The final death toll won’t come close to the thousands that died on 9/11 or the hundreds of thousands that perished in the Indonesian tsunami. You can still read about both of those horrific events in any newspaper over a decade after they occurred. Why do news sources continue to report the tragic events that have happened weeks, months, even years in the past? I believe it is so that those of us who are fortunate enough to be relatively unaffected by tragedy will reflect upon how lucky we are, count our blessings, and remember to hug our grandchildren. For people who have lost friends or family, or suffered devastating loss of property, continuing news coverage says to them, “You are not forgotten.” Sometimes all a victim of a tragic event has to hold onto is a small paragraph in a newspaper that says, “Relief efforts are ongoing.”
Like President Obama said when he visited the site of the Oso landslide, we’ll be reading about the Oso slide “as long as it takes.” That’s how long, Mr. Orders.
David Budsey
Arlington
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