My bet is that most of you were not ready for the Flood of 2009. Many of you, according to phone calls, e-mails and letters to our office, decided early on who was to blame. Some of you blame the City, some the County, and some of you blame us. All of you blame Mediacom for not keeping your cable, Internet and phones up and running.

Two of my favorite reasons for people getting upset were: Monday the caller said, “I’ve got to get to work and no one told me North Valdosta Road was closed.” The road wasn’t closed until late Saturday evening and was immediately posted on our Web site. He said it should have been in Saturday’s paper ...? Another caller was upset because she had “errands to run” and she needed a map showing closed roads.

Now neither of these people had any flooding at their house, but their lives had been disrupted. It was the newspaper’s fault that order could not be restored — at least for them.

It was encouraging to see the help people directly affected by the flooding received. Friends helped friends, as expected, and strangers helped strangers as reported in our flood stories. These stories always bring with them hope to the reader. Our world has not gone to hell in a hand basket as some people think.

While our flood did not get much or any mention on the Weather Channel or CNN, everyone in South Georgia was following the news of road closures and rising rivers very closely. Our newspaper Web site saw a 159 percent increase in visitors on Monday. During the four-day period starting Thursday, we had 92,814 returning visitors and 38,932 new visitors compared to the same period a week before.

Our staff worked throughout the day and late into the night to keep our Web site and newspaper updated with the latest flood information. This was a big news event for us. For those of you near the rivers, this was a very personal event. All of us have a new level of understanding for the people hit by Katrina or the Red River flood recently in North Dakota. The total loss was much higher there than here, but waist-deep water in your home is the same no matter how severe the devastation.

What we need to learn is to follow our God-given instincts. You should not have to ask, “The water is up to my chest; what should I do?” Did you ever think of leaving?

We have a long history of being slow to move. God and Noah had people problems during the first flood. The rains came and Noah kept telling people to come aboard even as he closed the door.

What we did have this time was people helping people and that alone is worth praying a prayer of thanks.