I am relatively young, but in 1997, I lived through a 500-year flood in my home town. Five years ago, the worst tornado in the area's recorded history nearly hit the house I am living in now, instead decimating a house down the street, leading to the uninsured owner to sell it for $7000. This summer, the second-worst wildfire in State history came within a thin strip of water from taking my childhood home.

And yet today, in northern Colorado, I feel unquestionably safer from Mother Nature than I would living anywhere else in this country.

My thoughts are with Russ, Resolution and any Rowbots on the east coast this morning.