Chicago fortunate when it comes to coping with wrath of God-type acts

Those of us paying attention to weather reports in recent weeks have noticed the hurricanes that wrecked their wrath on Texas and now are taking aim on much of Florida. Those with a broader vision will see that those hurricanes also hit Cuba and Puerto Rico, along with the earthquake that has killed dozens in Mexico.

Many a Chicago schoolchild has seen this diorama depiction at the Chicago History Museum of the greatest disaster to impact our city -- the Great Fire of 1871. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

All of which makes me feel fortunate these days to be in Chicago.

A LAND WHERE we don’t get hurricanes and the possibility of being impacted by an earthquake would be a geological anomaly of historic proportions.

We in the Midwest, of course, always face the possibility of tornadoes causing death and destruction. Yet we in Chicago have only 13 tornadoes known to touchdown within the city limits during its not-quite-two-century history.

And only one of those, back on May 6, 1876, hit the area now considered our city’s downtown. Two died and 35 were injured in that incident that damaged the then-Cook County Hospital, along with the Palmer House Hotel.

Coming just five years after the incident that, to this date, is the most significant disaster to impact Chicago – the Great Fire of 1871 – maybe it seemed at that point in time that Chicago was a doomed site.

ONE COULD ARGUE, of course, that the Fire shouldn’t be counted. Is it really a disaster the equivalent of Mother Nature having a hissy fit to have much of the city destroyed by a fire caused by (depending on which account you want to believe) that damned cow kicking over a lamp or some guy named “Peg Leg.”

Besides, we’ve managed to go another 140 years without significant devastation to our city.

We haven’t had a significant tornado touchdown in Chicago since 1967, and that one did most of its damage (33 dead, more than 500 injured) in suburban Oak Lawn – with some damage managing to cross over into the Southwest Side near Midway Airport.

Maybe it's a sign of how fortunate Chicago has been to be spared natural disasters that we can name a shopping center for one of the few structures NOT damaged in the Great Fire

And no, I’m not trying to downplay the tornado that whacked suburban Plainfield back in 1990. That is one of the few disaster-type incidents that I had a hand in covering as a reporter-type person.

BUT THAT ONE lies on the fringe of what could be called the Chicago-area. My point being that we in the city truly have been fortunate. One of the screwiest-type “flood” incidents we had was in 1992 when the Chicago River sprung a leak into the sub-basements that exist beneath downtown buildings.

That one can’t be blamed on nature – that one was pure man-made technical error. Or carelessness, if you prefer to think of it that way.

My point is that in watching these news reports of recent days, I can’t help but feel fortunate about where I live. It’s almost as though I was fortunate enough to be born and raised in one of the safest places in existence – something to keep in mind the next time some political crackpot wants to go off on a rage about the homicide rate of Chicago and exaggerate it into us being the deadliest place on the planet.

It makes me wonder about actress Jennifer Lawrence, who recently made comments about “Mother Nature’s Rage and Wrath” against the people who backed Donald J. Trump for president and who question the legitimacy of “global warming.”

WHICH IS A blatantly absurd thought to have. Although my understanding of the context was that she was trying to mock the individuals who go around thinking of natural disasters as “God’s punishment” against society for tolerating homosexuality.

That is a blatantly ignorant thing to say or think, and is a thought worthy of being mocked.

So what does it say that Mother Nature doesn’t seem to get all that upset about Chicago? Does she love that we don’t try to fool her that often?

Because we all (or at least those of us old enough to remember) know that it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature – even if it’s by passing off Chiffon margarine as real butter!

  -30-

Come back, grads! Come back to Chi

I found it amusing to learn that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is going about these days urging high school graduates not to give up on Chicago.

The Chicago Tribune reported about Emanuel speaking at three commencement ceremonies on Saturday, giving essentially the same message.

WHEN THOSE STUDENTS finish their education elsewhere, they ought to make sure to make a return trip to Chicago. Apply that education here. Make something of themselves in the Second City.

“You are our future,” Emanuel told one group of students, according to the newspaper. “We have a great future as long as you make Chicago home.”

What next? Will he be calling out for “Shane” to, “Come back!”

Although my guess is that Emanuel is far from the only political person who worries about the potential for brain drain causing problems for the future. I have heard too many instances of Michigan residents who, upon completing college, make a beehive right for Chicago.

THOSE WITH AN education and some special skills seem to think our metro area is a finer place to have a life than Detroit, or anywhere else in Michigan – a place many Chicagoans with some financial means use as a place for the summer cottage, of sorts.

Maybe Emanuel figures that Chicagoans with the same spirit of wanting to move up will make the same beehive for New York (except for those geeks who studied political science who will rush for the District of Columbia instead).

Although I just stumbled across New York Times story about the added cost of living in New York – to the point where many people who wish to live there just can’t swing it. Particularly if they also have significant financial debt that put themselves through college in the first place.

So where do lifelong New Yorkers with greater aspirations in life make a beehive to? Are they the ones who decide that they just have to live in Paris (if their education included any foreign language training) or London (if it didn’t)?

OR DO THE most sensible of those people realize how much nicer Chicago is in terms of being a place to actually live a life. Primarily for the fact that New York costs of living really do make Chicago out to be a financial bargain (unless you’re one of those people who thinks that slumming it is living anywhere outside of a penthouse apartment in the Trump Tower that sits on top of the foundation of the Sun-Times Building of old).

 

Am I alone in looking at Trump Tower and longing for what used to be?

Personally, I don’t think Emanuel has much to worry about. I believe many of those younger people who leave Chicago for a four- or five-year stretch (depending on how studious they are) will wind up returning.

I know I did. The only area college I applied to (Columbia College on Michigan Avenue) was purely my backup, and I quit thinking about the place once I learned I had options to experience life elsewhere for a few years.

Which was a smart move on my part. I got exposed to other people I never would have encountered here. While also having summer breaks to roam about the city and soak it in to the point where I couldn’t get in the car and drive back up Interstate 55 fast enough the day I graduated some 27 years ago.

EVEN WHEN I took work elsewhere (including a seven-year stretch in Springfield), I always have managed to come back to Chicago. The city just has a lure to bring people back.

And as for those who just aren’t latched by that lure? The ones who somehow decide that some place like Southern California is more attractive?

As far as I’m concerned, they can live in fear that the big earthquake will come along, and they will drop into the Pacific – a long way away from here where we'll enjoy the shores and beaches of Lake Michigan.

  -30-