All it takes is one: one night full of heavy snow to remind us of how flimsy and inconsequential what we call "civilization" truly is.

We've built our lives around conveniences we now take for granted: electricity in every socket, water out of every faucet, and heat out of every furnace. But after one night of snow, it can all disappear and leave you cold and in the dark.

Such was the case this week, when the dire weather that has bombarded the nation throughout the winter thus far finally caught up to the mid-Hudson Valley region. It was estimated that 85,000 Central Hudson customers lost power when this latest snow storm blew through our towns. When the power goes out, your well stops pumping water, and your furnace sits dormant and cool to the touch. And if your phone goes, that last connection to the outside world is severed and you're really on your own. The quest for peace and isolation in rural areas like ours comes at a heavy cost when nature reminds us of who's in charge.

"Losing power" certainly takes on a much more potent meaning.

Storms such as these illustrate a fact which people like to try and forget: civilization is, for all intents and purposes, unnatural. Convenient, comforting, and entertaining as it may be every other day of the year, when the sky opens up and dumps a blanket of snow onto the people below, the fact that our way of life has nothing to do with nature's plans for us becomes painfully apparent. All it takes is one night.

This was our area's most recent reminder that, despite our best efforts to pretend that we're the masters of our own domain, people really aren't in control, and they never will be. There are surely more reminders to come this winter, as well as more rainstorms as winter turns to spring, and heat waves as spring turns to summer.

That's why, when these systems break down, it's important that we take a moment to check on a neighbor, or help a motorist stranded on the side of the road. Nature isn't looking out for someone down the street who may need some drinking water, and it won't stop to pull a car out of a ditch. Trusting in civilization — which is so easily crushed under nature's weight — to take care of us is a mistake. It's people looking out for other people that keep us from freezing when the heat goes.

All it takes is one night of snow to show us that the luxuries we depend on every day are so fragile. And all it takes is one moment of humanity to keep the whole thing from crashing down around us.