Sohn: Let's welcome December and help our stricken neighbors

Staff photo by Tim Barber Fairview Baptist Spanish Pastor Carlos Mauricio surveys damage in what was the basketball gym at Fairview Christian Academy in Athens, Tenn.
Staff photo by Tim Barber Fairview Baptist Spanish Pastor Carlos Mauricio surveys damage in what was the basketball gym at Fairview Christian Academy in Athens, Tenn.

How to help

› Times Neediest Cases — timesfreepress.com/news/neediestcases/2016/› Woodmore Fund — hcde.org/woodmore› Salvation Army — give.salvationarmyusa.org› Red Cross — Redcross.org› UnitedWayCHA.org/GiveHope

Goodbye, November. And good riddance.

The General Election was tough enough to take (at least on this page) but Chattanooga and the Southeast took double, triple and quadruple whammies with drought-fueled wildfires that evacuated local residents, with suffocating smoke trapped in the Chattanooga Valley, with a horrific school bus accident that claimed the lives of six children and with the devastating Gatlinburg wildfires that killed at least 11 and left hundreds homeless.

Still, November was not done with us.

As the last hours of the cruel month ticked out, tornadoes raked through seven Tennessee counties and 12 Alabama counties, including McMinn, Polk, Marion, Bradley and Sequatchie in Tennessee and Jackson in Alabama. At least five people died in those storms and 20 more were injured. Thankfully the accompanying heavy rains brought most of the wildfires under control.

Now comes the hard part.

Repairing hearts and rebuilding homes.

That's where the rest of us come in. We've clutched our throats and cried for those who died and their survivors, but now it is December, the season of giving and helping.

Let's all find a way to do that for our neighbors who were caught up in the horrors of November.

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