Searching for the Living, but Mostly Finding the Dead - New York Times

'I made her leave for Ivan,' Ms. Burnett said of the storm last year that, it turned out, did not cause much damage here. 'She never forgave me.'

'She said, 'I'm not leaving, even if it's Category 10'; well, she's so damn stubborn,' Ms. Burnett said, beginning to cry.

Then Ms. Burnett saw a dog. 'Buddy, that's her dog,' she said. 'My mom's with the dog.'

The workers untangled a gently barking Buddy from some branches and then, when one spotted a body farther on, turned and signaled to another worker, who led Ms. Burnett off the roof and back to the rescue truck.

'Buddy, you're a miracle,' Ms. Burnett said to the dog, then turned to the worker, Debbie Crisher.

'She's in there, isn't she?'

'They're still looking,' Ms. Crisher said.

The search team turned over the body. It was that of Ms. Burnett's mother. They trudged back through power lines, trees and mud as heavy as wet concrete.

'Did you find her?' Ms. Burnett asked.

The squad leader, Jon Rigolo, took her aside and gave her the news. Ms. Burnett nodded and began crying again...

"The hardest part is, it didn't have to be this way," said David Cash, one of two doctors with the Virginia Beach team. "If people had evacuated - of course, where are they going to evacuate to? But other people did evacuate. Everybody that died here was needless. It's just the senselessness of it all."

Why are we so stubborn? Why are we so self-assured that we will survive, that these things will not happen to us? Lord, have mercy!