I Leave You With This Thought: Are You Ready?

Nov 5, 2012
Hurricane Sandy: Yet Another "100-Year-Event"
from Rapture Ready 
Once again, the U.S. has been hit by a disaster being described as a record or 100-year event. Hurricane Sandy caused wide-scale destruction as it slammed into the East Coast of the U.S. It will take weeks to add up the cost of all the damage, but we already have enough raw data to make the storm one for the history books. Here is a rundown of seven historic milestones:

• The NYC Subway System has suffered the worst disruption in its 108 years of operation.
• New York City experienced the highest surge ever. A record high water level of 13.88 feet was set at the Battery Park point, breaking the oldest official record of 10.02 feet.
• Sandy’s central pressure bottomed out at 940 millibars, setting a record for the lowest pressure of an Atlantic storm north of Cape Hatteras, NC.
• According to the National Hurricane Center, Sandy is the largest land-falling Atlantic tropical cyclone, which had tropical storm force winds extending out to 600 miles.
• The New York Stock Exchange closed for two days — the first time it's been closed for two consecutive days due to weather since 1888, when a blizzard struck the city.
• The storm cut power to over 8 million customers. This is the largest storm-related outage in the history of Con Edison.
• New York Harbor's surf also reached a record level when a buoy measured a 32.5-foot wave Monday. That wave was 6.5 feet taller than a 25-foot wave churned up by Hurricane Irene in 2011.

The current cost of damages from Sandy stands at $50 billion, which would rank behind Katrina ($108 billion in present-day dollars). Because most insurance policies don't cover flood damage, a large portion of the damage will not be covered.

The press has been trying to find a silver lining in the storm by promoting the idea that the economy will receive a shot in the arm by all the government spending and rebuilding that will take place in the coming months. There is nothing financially positive about a disaster that destroys property. Once we rebuild, we are only back to where we were before the hurricane. Thousands of small businesses will probably fail because of the economic stress that Sandy will place on them. The relief effort and lost taxes will eventually add another $100 billion to our ballooning nation debt.

Terry and I were recently talking about the possibility of a storm like Sandy occurring. We had noticed that the cycle for natural disasters was speeding up, and it looked about time for another birth pang. Jesus gave us the pattern for the last days when He told His disciples that warning signs would come like birth pains.

"As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. 'Tell us,' they said, 'when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?' Jesus answered: 'Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, "I am the Messiah," and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains'" (Matthew 24:3-8 NIV).

I firmly believe the birth pains factor is the reason we are seeing so many events with 100-year label. This year was already pegged as an historic year for drought and massive heat. Now we can add Hurricane Sandy to the mix.

Last year was marked by record tornadoes and flooding. There were so many tornadoes, we set a record for setting records in the variety of this type of disaster.

The year 2010 was a grab bag of natural disasters. That year was the deadliest in more than a generation. Earthquakes, heat waves, floods, volcanoes, super typhoons, blizzards, landslides, and droughts killed more than 260,000 people.

It is amazing how quickly we become accustomed to the increased frequency of disasters. Do you remember way, way back in March of 2011 when Japan suffered its worst recorded earthquake in its history? And do you remember way, way, way, way back in January of 2010 when 250,000 people were killed by another quake that struck Haiti? In many times in the past century, you could go a decade without seeing an earthquake of any great significance.

We are now at a point where disasters have become so frequent and massive is scale, the news life cycle of an single event is very brief. Tropical Storm Irene was a bad storm, but it has been wiped from everyone's memory by Hurricane Sandy.

God is clearly trying to get man's attention with all these calamities. The Lord is very patient, but He is no fool. Eventually, the warnings will end and the final judgment will begin. "Am I truly ready?" is the question everyone needs to ask themselves.

"And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" (Luke 21: 8-11, 25-28). --Todd