We’re under a heat dome, with temperatures reaching 100 and higher. The elderly whose air-conditioning fails, little ones whose family can’t pay the utilities bills and the homeless, are all suffering. What does Limestone County offer?

Generally speaking, the need is immediate. It’s not like there is time to reflect like Lake Poets on such problems. Heat kills. So what do people do if a heat crisis strikes, and they’ve no family around to help? Let’s see what we could do for them, if they had the bad luck of getting in trouble in Limestone County.

First call, 211. This is the number you call in Alabama for all public assistance which is not an emergency, such as would require you call 911. 211 asks for your zip code. You advise them you live in Limestone County and want a cooling station. None listed. How about this? Imagine you are homeless and have access to a computer. (This is already in fantasy land). Check homeless shelters. None. Calling numbers listed online brings you to services once available, but no longer.

OK, so you’re older and know about the senior centers. They’re open weekdays from 11 a.m.-2 p.m., usually. So if your crisis is from say, 11:30-2 weekdays, you’re in business. Otherwise, they are closed. You are out of luck. You chance to meet the homeless guy with the computer, who says the nearest homeless shelter is in Huntsville. Hit the road, Jack.

These dilemmas are real. Our roads have wanderers who are the least among us. Seems to be, whether intended our not, we want them to keep on moving and get out of our county. Take their troubles somewhere else. Anywhere but here.

I’m sure the irony doesn’t escape you. We spent a lot of money and time arguing over what the signs would look like welcoming people to Athens. We’ve already started to argue over whether a law in Oklahoma should apply here. You know, the one which says we need to decide whether public schools should teach the Bible. Why now in the schools? Seems those who should be teaching it at home and church haven’t done so well at it. We’ve closed down mental institutions, have no homeless shelters in our county and wonder where someone in need should get cooled off. I’m sure taking care of the least among us is in the Bible somewhere.

We know all about how to be angry at those who don’t go to the same church we don’t go to. Seems the Samaritan on the road saw a hurt man and did something about it. Funny enough, he didn’t check his wallet. Maybe that’s why Jesus was wise to say, “They stripped him of his clothes.” This way, nobody got the idea that the Samaritan could have checked the beaten man’s status and gotten something out of the deal. Here in Limestone County, if you don’t have help on your own in the deadly heat, you’re out of luck.

My guess is most of us would do anything to help someone if we could. Car wrecks, heart attacks, accidents of all sorts surround us. Individually, we have shown our true colors in such events. In tornado season, we literally shine. Help for those struck by winds comes aplenty. But ask yourself if we are collectively serving one another correctly year-round? We can do anything we want as a group. Why don’t we contact our councilmen or county commissioners and ask why them we don’t have known, clearly marked homeless shelters? Or cooling stations? For that matter, why don’t we try treating one another the way we’d like to be treated, if we were the one beaten, lying naked on the side of the road.