Yes, you can help victims of Hurricane Harvey

Earlier in my newspaper career -- this would have been the 1960s -- I was assigned to cover flooding in Smithville, Missouri. It was a small town then but now is part of Kansas City's suburbia.

Smithville is situated on the Little Platte River. In the 1960s, residents of the town were used to annual wet-weather flooding. Did they move to higher ground? No. Did they put their houses on stilts? No. Did they ask the government for buyouts? No.

They cleaned up, repaired, rebuilt and moved back. They went home.

It doesn't matter where you live, it seems, but adversity tends to bring out what I would call the castle complex in our human nature. Whatever our homes are like -- mansions or shacks -- we will defend them as if they were our fortresses, our refuge.

The opposite of floods is wildfires. Out in the West fires are raging across several heat-swamped states. Dazed homeowners interviewed on TV may have just watched a lifetime of accumulated stuff go up in smoke, but they are resolute about going home, rebuilding, putting their lives back together.

In the mid-1960s the federal government authorized the construction of a lake on the Little Platte River. For many visionaries, the lake was seen as a boon. It would spur tourism -- indeed, the lake hosts 1.5 million visitors a year, provides a reliable water supply for area towns and supplements the Missouri River as Kansas City's water source, and checks the flow of floodwater during thunderstorms.

Well, Smithville Lake began impounding water in 1979, and the town has endured major and minor flooding annually ever since. In April 2016, a 4-inch rain produced flooding in the town that was "the worst we've seen in a long time," according to one resident.

My point is this: You can monkey around with the whims of weather all you want, but, as the old commercial said, you can't fool Mother Nature.

Cape Girardeau has made significant progress is funneling runoff from heavy rains through the city and away from otherwise flood-prone businesses and homes. It would take quite a storm, the likes of which is rarely seen, to overflow these pre-emptive measures.

But many folks in Houston were saying pretty much the same thing before Hurricane Harvey crashed into Texas.

Now an even stronger hurricane is on a rampage, threatening our southeastern shores. By the time you read this, Hurricane Irma may be giving us another wallop of devastation.

Those of us far enough removed from hurricane activity watch the around-the-clock news coverage of the weather mayhem with a sense of helplessness. While thousands of folks struggle to keep their heads above water, literally, as their homes are devastated, we ask, over and over, "What can we do?"

Make no mistake. Most of what happens after a hurricane comes down to dollars. Billions of them.

If you want to contribute, there are hundreds of opportunities. If you have Internet access, do a search for "Hurricane Harvey assistance." You will find many, many ways to donate both your talent and your money. Choose carefully.

If you don't have Internet access, call the local Red Cross disaster relief office at (573) 335-9471 to see how you can help. If you want to make a donation, call 1-800-REDCROSS.

As those who have endured disasters know all too well, the event itself -- hurricane, flood, tornado, wildfire -- can be terrifying, but the real test comes afterward with the long grind of cleanup and recovery.

Like the folks in Smithville, most of the victims of Hurricane Harvey are in this for the long haul. Whatever we can do to help will make that process a bit more bearable.

Joe Sullivan is the retired editor of the Southeast Missourian.