Acts of God

When will it stop raining? It just keeps coming.

The devastation caused by the relentless rains and flooding in Wisconsin and other parts of the Midwest is so difficult to quantify.

You really can't put a price on losing one's home or one's business.

Then, there's the human toll, the loss of life.

This story out of Madison is so sad.

From the Wisconsin State Journal:

A man, woman and child are dead after they were electrocuted by downed wires at a bus stop on Madison's North Side Wednesday afternoon, the first weather-related electrocutions in the area in 20 years, officials said.

In addition, Madison police spokesman Mike Hanson said a boy, who was with his mother waiting at the bus stop, was taken to the hospital, as was the bus driver. Names and ages of the injured had not been released.

Madison Gas & Electric Co. spokesman Steve Kraus said lightning struck power lines near the intersection of Northport Drive and Sherman Avenue. "One of our lines came down and hit the ground and remained energized, with the power still going through it," he said.

Hanson said the electricity from the wire traveled through several inches of standing water on the sidewalk, electrocuting the three. The woman and her child were electrocuted while they waited to board the bus, according to a police department press release. The man was then killed when he got off the bus to try to help the two.

The bus driver also was shocked when he tried to help the woman and child, according to police, and the child was injured when he tried to enter the pool of water where the two deceased were.

...Mayor Dave Cieslewicz went to the scene and said the bus driver and others at the scene acted as heroes.

"Thanks to the heroic actions of several individuals, including the driver of the Madison Metro bus, more lives were not lost," Cieslewicz said in a statement.

"The bus driver had entered the water himself to try to assist the people in distress," said George Twigg, mayor spokesman.

Twigg said the driver wasn't the only person who entered the water. "There were a couple situations in which individuals had entered the water to try to help others and were actually pulled back from the water by people," he said. "It was thanks to some intervention by some people at the scene that those additional people were brought to safety."

This eyewitness account of the incident is horrible.

Mildred Schultz, 84, said she was in the Walgreen when the lighting struck, but came out to see the three bodies lying on the sidewalk.

"All I saw was a heap of bodies and there was a fire," she said. "Their clothes must have been on fire."

There has been so much misery caused by these storms.

A mother and her child were about to get on a bus and they were killed. A man trying to help them was killed.

A storm blows through and, in the blink of an eye, three people are dead.

From Channel 3000:

"A lot of officers were affected because they couldn't jump in there and help because the wires were still live. There are some heavy hearts," [Madison police spokesman Mike] Hanson said.

..."(The victims) were still on the ground while the smoke was covering them. I guess they died instantly because of the shock," said Derrick Williams, who said he was at the scene when the incident occurred. "(It happened in) less than 3 or 4 seconds. It was so quick, like, boom, boom, boom, boom."

What can you say about this?

There's such a feeling of powerlessness. There's so much that we can't control.

We can't stop this rain.

Lives are snuffed out in seconds.

The victims of the storms are in my prayers.