CARLTON FLETCHER: Storms bring on a collective PTSD

Help! I need somebody! Help! Not just anybody!

— The Beatles

Many of the main thoroughfares in Albany are clear now, most of the debris from Jan. 2 and Jan. 22 storms cleared and hauled away. Outsiders driving along Dawson Road, Oglethorpe Boulevard, Radium Springs Road, Jefferson Street or Slappey Boulevard might not even notice the random piles of tree limbs or the unexpected clear stretches that look like they’re missing something.

They might even finding themselves thinking, “Why all the hoopla?”

But if those same drivers took a turn here or there — onto Imperial Street, say, or Third Avenue, down 11th, back over to Florence or up Second to the so-called Lime Sink — they’d get it.

Yes, the Emergency Operations Center is closed now, the once daily storm updates relegated to random media features that pop up from time to time. The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency — FEMA and GEMA — have set up shop and worked with city and county officials and individual storm victims to determine how many dollars may be doled out.

A contract has been signed and a company hired to collect all the fallen trees and debris piled up along city streets, and the mountainous piles of said flora collected on city property is now being ground into almost equally large mounds of mulch.

As far as the casual eye can see, Albany appears to have done a good job of collecting itself and moving on.

No one will argue that we, as a collective community, need to return to “normal” — or what passes as such — as soon as it makes sense to do so. The Utility Board does need to start back cutting off utilities of customers who don’t pay their bills. GEMA and FEMA do need to wrap up their business, shut down their emergency centers and head back to Washington and Atlanta. And local government officials do need to devise plans that will allow them to come up with revamped policies that take into account changes wrought by the storm.

But as badly as we need to return to the relative calm that existed in this community prior to Jan. 2, we need to step back and realize that the devastation that these storms brought to our city and others that were unfortunate enough to lie in their path is not over. Not by a long shot. There are still homes all across the city whose roofs are covered with blue tarps. There are still streets lined from one end to the next that obviously were not on anyone’s debris pickup list.

And there are families and neighborhoods that were somehow omitted from the kindness shown by individuals and organizations in the seven weeks since that first storm did its damage, people left to fend for themselves.

It’s no one’s fault. And it should be noted that some of these folks didn’t really solicit or want the help that was so generously afforded a large number of their neighbors and fellow citizens. There are still, believe it or not, do-it-yourselfers who are comfortable making their own way.

But even people who fall into this category are part of a phenomenon that seems to have gripped the community. It’s nothing overt, nothing you can point to and say, “See, that’s it right there.” But our community seems to have been hit with a fringe case of collective post-traumatic stress disorder. Not to lessen the severity of that malady and how it impacts war veterans and victims of violence, but it seems that the entire community is a little uncertain about this idea of moving on.

It seems that everyone gets a little uneasy when rain clouds roll in, that the enthusiasm that was building around certain announced pre-storm events and projects just hasn’t returned.

I don’t know … maybe that’s normal, given the severity of these storms. But I can’t believe I’m the only one who thinks we’ve fallen into a going-through-the-motions malaise that’s zapped a good bit of our collective energy. Here’s hoping we find the right remedy before that momentum not only grinds to a halt but actually takes a turn in the opposite direction.

Email Carlton Fletcher at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_Fletcher on Twitter.