The Death Of One Is A Tragedy

I was struck by a headline I read this afternoon: "Tornadoes rip through Colorado, Wyoming; 1 killed" it read. First of all, my curiosity was piqued because I have family and friends in Colorado, and my thoughts immediately went to them. Abruptly after that, I was drawn to that death toll. The story went on to say that there was "at least one person killed" in the series of storms that bounced around northern Colorado. There was even a funnel cloud spotted in Longmont, just a short drive up the highway from my hometown, but there were no immediate reports of damage.
There will be plenty of debris to clean up, and it is likely that there will be more fatalities associated with this latest natural disaster. While on the other side of the planet, China has decided not to rebuild the largest town leveled by the earthquake that struck last week. Of Beichuan's former inhabitants, about eight thousand six hundred are known to have died and another five thousand eight hundred and ninety-four are considered missing. The rest appear to have survived. Across the region, more than fifty thousand people lost their lives, with another twenty to thirty thousand still missing.
In related news, scientists predicted the potential outcomes of "The Big One", a 7.8 quake on the San Andreas Fault: Hospitals are swamped with fifty thousand injured as all of Southern California reels from a blow on par with the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. Two hundred billion dollars in damage to the economy, and one thousand eight hundred dead. That would be horrifying and monumental, but the perspective is almost as impressive. It was a 7.9-magnitude earthquake that hit Sichuan Province.
It makes me proud, and a little bit humble, to be an American.