To put national disasters in perspective including flood, fire, drouth, wind, earthquake, volcano, pestilence and boils, the Bible records God's first choice was flood.

North Carolina's coastal plain, 100 miles wide, stretches north to south across the state between Raleigh and the Atlantic coast. It has no high ground, no Mount Ararat. The rivers run across the plain like a groove cut in a kitchen table. When the rivers overflowed their banks this fall, the water spread across the table like spilled chocolate milk.

The cause was Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Floyd — 140 MPH winds, not to mention Irene.

The culprit was rain — 35 inches in 10 days.

The catastrophe was flood — over the tops of the houses.

The coastal plain is an intense agricultural region. Cucumbers, sweet potatoes, tobacco, cotton, soybeans, broilers, turkeys, hogs, cattle ... many diversified small farms. But diversified farming doesn't do much good when it's all four feet under water.

Although there was loss of human life, it was not as high as the toll taken in the recent earthquakes. In North Carolina people were trapped in their houses by the rapidly rising water. Some did not escape.

The loss of livestock was extensive ... no high ground. Farmers could only open the barn doors. Hogs swam out the windows. Chickens hunted for a high perch, cows tried to take advantage of topographical humps, dogs and cats found rooftops, ducks fared better than turkeys, but in the end they died by the tens and hundreds of thousands.

Now most of the flood waters have abated but the tragedy continues.

Farmers were forced out of their homes with the coats on their backs. Upon returning they found a barren mess of unimaginable proportions. Many had day jobs but the jobs were often in ag-related businesses.

Their homes are unliveable, their fields are gone, their livestock scattered and unidentifiable, their financial resources drained and winter is coming on. It is going to be a long one for our fellow farmers on the coastal plains of North Carolina.

Help came pouring in from public and private agencies. I know it is appreciated, but how many bureaucrats brought a mud shovel and stayed past the political speeches? A mountain of grunt work still lies ahead.

We, all across the country who know the blessing and the terror of weather, can sympathize and pray that in rebuilding they don't lose hope. And maybe by next spring at planting time a dove will have flown by and left an olive branch on their windowsill.