Chapter 137 Summer Impressions
"Old lady, have you watched the news? Is it still raining heavily in your hometown?"
Lin Ting had just opened the door and asked loudly without even changing his shoes.
Wang Shan, who was following behind him, was a little puzzled. "Grandpa, why do you always ask this question recently?"
"Because your grandfather is worried about floods in his hometown!" Zhou Qing helped explain.
With the abnormal warming of the global climate in recent years, the weather in Pengcheng has become abnormal this year.
As early as March 27, Pengcheng entered summer, which is the earliest record of entering summer in Pengcheng.
After the summer began, Shenzhen was hit by unbearable heat, Guangdong Province experienced a drought that occurs once in 50 years, seawater backflow occurred in some areas of the Pearl River Delta, and the salt tide caused large-scale water outages in some parts of Guangdong Province.
The unusually hot weather in Pengcheng had no other impact on Lin Qiu's family except that it was a little hot. The cold drink business in the newsstand and convenience store even became booming.
However, since June, the Yangtze River Basin has experienced three rare large-scale rainfalls, which has caused the water level in the Yangtze River Basin to continue to rise.
Under such circumstances, the Meteorological Observatory had already sensed the danger and immediately issued a flood warning.
It was also from this time that the news began to report on the weather conditions in the Yangtze River Basin every day.
Lin Qiu's family's hometown is Hunan Province in the Yangtze River Basin. Ever since they learned that there might be a flood in Hunan Province, the old couple has been watching the news all the time, and their hearts have become more and more anxious.
Lin Ting put on slippers, walked to the coffee table in two steps, picked up the remote control and turned on the TV.
As soon as I turned on the TV, the screen was a vast ocean.
A female voice is reporting: Recently, the water levels of Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake have continued to rise due to continuous heavy rains...
"Oh! It's still raining in my hometown. What should I do?" Zhou Qing looked worried.
Lin Ting gritted his teeth and cursed, "This damn weather! Those who are dry will die of drought, and those who are flooded will die of flooding!"
"Old man, if Dongting Lake can't be saved, will something happen to our hometown?" Thinking of this possibility, Zhou Qing paced back and forth anxiously.
"We have the Holy Emperor's blessing, nothing will happen to us?" Lin Ting said sternly.
"Yes, yes! We have the Holy Emperor there." Zhou Qing put his hands together, "Holy Emperor, please show your power and stop raining."
Lin Ting looked at the scenes on the news and felt increasingly uneasy, so he started to pray as well.
But the more you fear something, the more it will come.
On June 24, affected by heavy rains, the water levels of Poyang Lake and Dongting Lake directly exceeded the embankments and merged into the Yangtze River, causing the water levels in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to rise rapidly and exceed the warning water levels one after another.
After the news came out, Lin Qiu's family was worried, fearing that they would hear bad news from their hometown.
Lin Ting called the prefabrication site every day, repeatedly reminding Zhou Mei to keep an eye on the two children, try not to go out, and store some water and dry food on the second floor. If the water really rose, take the children to the second floor.
Probably knowing that the old couple were also concerned about Lin Li's two children, Zhou Mei specially picked an afternoon with light rain and went to Liu Xiang's parents' home. She gave some instructions on behalf of Lin Ting and also told Lin Min to keep an eye on her younger brother and not to wander around.
When Lin Ting called the next day, Zhou Mei told him about this and asked him not to worry.
How could Lin Ting be at ease? He has a daughter-in-law and four children back home. If something really happens, what will he do?
Zhou Qing was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan. He couldn't sleep all night and his mouth was full of blisters. Chewing dry Coptis chinensis tablets didn't work.
Lin Qiu didn't know how to comfort her. After all, she was also worried when she saw the news reports, but she couldn't just tell everyone that nothing would happen in her hometown.
Perhaps it was because Yancheng was located on high ground, or perhaps it was because of the blessing of the Holy Emperor, the entire Yancheng was not greatly affected by the flood in the previous life.
Lin Qiu's memory of this flood is the continuous heavy rain, the water that flooded the road, and the brave and fearless PLA soldiers on TV.
Wang Xiuren also called home. Although the estrangement between him and his parents would not disappear, they were still blood relatives after all. Under such circumstances, he couldn't help but wonder about their situation.
Wang Xiuren felt relieved when he learned that they had stored food and water in the attic early on and even slept in the attic at night.
But when the old couple took the opportunity to inquire about his situation, he hung up the phone directly.
But Wang Shan was watching TV quietly, her delicate eyebrows furrowed from time to time, her mouth tightly pursed, as if she was thinking about something.
The summer of 1998 was a heart-wrenching summer for all Chinese people. Everyone was praying, but unfortunately, things did not go as planned.
That summer, severe floods occurred in the entire river basins of the Yangtze River, Nenjiang River, Songhua River and other rivers.
As the disaster spreads step by step, the flood has seriously affected the normal lives of residents in 29 provinces, cities and districts including Jiangxi, Hunan and Heilongjiang.
The leaders of the Party Central Committee went to the front line to direct flood control and rescue operations, and 320,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers went to the disaster area one after another.
Faced with the raging flood, countless PLA soldiers, cadres and the masses rushed forward and built an iron wall with their bodies.
When news reports show this:
Many civilians knelt on the ground and begged the PLA soldiers not to jump into the water again, but the soldiers rescued the civilians one by one and jumped into the water like dumplings.
When the people cried out: We don’t want our houses anymore, please stop jumping.
But the PLA soldiers seemed not to hear their words and continued to jump into the icy flood one by one.
The Chinese people who saw this all had tears in their eyes, and cried out to the sky, hating the cruelty of natural disasters.
But natural disasters are ruthless, but people are kind.
The Yangtze River is long, but it is not as long as the Great Wall built with flesh and blood; the Nenjiang River is deep, but it is not as deep as the friendship of the people across the country. No matter how fast the flood is, it cannot break the dam built by the unity of the people.
On the evening of August 16, 1998, a fundraising performance for flood relief, "We Are United", which took only eight days to prepare and attracted enthusiastic participation from thousands of actors from all over the country, was presented to the people of the country via television broadcast.
During the more than three-hour performance, the company received donations from all walks of life and in kind worth more than 600 million yuan.
Pengcheng City also held a charity fundraising event.
The old couple Lin Ting and the young couple Lin Qiu all donated their love. Even Wang Shan smashed her beloved Pikachu piggy bank and donated her saved New Year's money and pocket money to it.
Wang Shan, who didn't understand her grandfather's feelings before, finally empathized with him after watching news reports about the flood throughout the summer.
She has a further understanding of disasters, her hometown, her country, and her national spirit.
She knew how lucky she was to grow up under the national flag and be born in the spring breeze.
She used her brush to paint a picture of PLA soldiers building a human wall to resist the flood.
The olive green and yellowish brown in the picture form a dramatic impact, and behind the olive green there is a bright five-star red flag.
If miracles had a color, it would be olive green;
If faith had a color, it would definitely be Chinese red.
These two colors are exactly Wang Shan’s deepest impression of this summer.
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