But...but...but...how will people get cured?

Note: re-posted to include link. But I couldn't find the original and had to use (shudder) a Fox link. Sorry.

LOURDES, France — Heavy floods in southwest France have forced the closure of the Catholic pilgrimage site in Lourdes and the evacuation of pilgrims from nearby hotels. 

Throughout Tuesday, masses were gradually cancelled. One by one, entrances to the sanctuary were cordoned off. The live video feed of the grotto went down. Then the electricity was cut off, and then phones. 

"A vision of the apocalypse in the Sainte Bernadette Church, where the big movable partition is threatening to fall. The water has risen above the stairs of the choir," read one announcement. 

Oh, the humanity! How will people be cured, how will their legs know to grow back, how will their vision return if they're blocked from this holy site? Those poor pilgrims! And the poor Virgin Mary! Without a way to let the miraculous curing rays out of her hands, she'll experience a backup -- and that can be dangerous to a supernatural being!

Oh, the humanity! Oh, the supernatural beings! Oh, drat!

What a blow!

PARIS (AP) — French rescue services and police are evacuating hundreds of pilgrims from hotels threatened by floodwaters from a rain-swollen river in the Roman Catholic shrine town of Lourdes. 

Oh, the humanity! Just think of all the people who won't be healed this weekend. I can't believe jeebus let this happen.

So many people died in yesterday's tornadoes

The devil. Ft, ft, ft, etc.

An article in the LA Times today reports that nearly 200 people died in the 24- to 36-hour span during which tornadoes pummeled the South. Doesn't that figure sound way out of line? This page states that only five tornadoes in the U.S. have ever killed more people than this. So it's happened before . . . yet somehow it feels like we're on a roll. There were 183 deaths in Alabama alone. That's insane. Are more on the way? Is this the new norm?

Floods everywhere, tornadoes killing people with regularity -- these events seem shocking to Americans. But I suspect we'll have to get used to it. Climate change has come home to roost. And yet we continue to do zilch about the problem of carbon emissions. As I often say on this blog, what's wrong with this picture?

Welcome to the new United States: powerless in the face of just about every obstacle. Heck, we can't even pick the right countries to start wars with, so I guess it's not surprising.

PS: Whenever there are reports of widespread tornado damage, I think of the loss of intellectual property. Yes, people lost their homes and communities and in many cases, their lives -- and that's awful. But no one ever talks about how many invisible items were lost. Had someone written a book or two and left it only on the computer, which was destroyed in the storm? Were a team's scientific findings and support materials lost? Was someone's physical collection of historic mementos been lost just before the person finally sat down to write that history book? I wonder why this sort of thing is never mentioned in news stories. Surely it's happened.