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Rose Johnson
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My house nearly burned down this week. I turned on the air conditioning hoping to cool the house down a bit and the breakers started sparking and flaming. It was some damage from the hurricane that wasn't immediately apparent. When my grandson spent the night about a week ago, he thought he smelled something coming from the switchbox in my bedroom. We listened and smelled the ducts but didn't find any wires burning. Now we know our intuition was right. Three fire trucks came, put out the fire and took away my meter box. I was leery about staying in the house after that but the fireman assured me there was no way the wires could spark a fire. So I am without electricity again. I'm trying to get an electrician to come out today. Thankfully, the insurance adjuster finally came. These are very stressful times for me. I still don't have a telephone or the Internet and have been told I won't get phone service until the end of November. A person I know that lives in a subdivision near here lost his home. He was going to put gas in the generator and had a candle in his hand. He must not have realized you just don't do that, and the generator exploded, burning him and burning the house to the ground.
I spend most of my time out trying to help other people so I often forget about myself. Yesterday I finally started cleaning up my house. There are so many hugs and tears being shed in these communities as folks try to put their homes back together. I'm thankful I work with an organization that helped stop a nearby resident from getting a permit to fill 350 acres of wetlands. I know if those wetlands had been developed, Forest Heights would be in a lot worse shape than it is now. I know my home would have been flooded a lot worse than it was with the wetlands absorbing the floodwaters.
Rose Johnson is co-chair of Sierra Club's Mississippi Chapter.
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Photo: Mark Muhich/Sierra Club collection; all rights reserved.
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