I hope nobody from here lives in New Orleans

[EPandAmerica]

Was that in a major newspaper in Philadelphia?

 

[U2dork]

I got this email from the university in my inbox this evening...

Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005

UGA ANNOUNCES ACTIONS IN RESPONSE TO HURRICANE TRAGEDY

University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams
today expressed concerns for victims of Hurricane Katrina
and announced several actions the institution will take in
response to the tragedy.

“All of us at UGA are very concerned about the
people impacted by this storm in Louisiana, Mississippi and
Alabama,” Adams said. “In particular, our hearts go out to
our colleagues at institutions of higher education in the
impacted areas. We will do everything we appropriately can
in support of the efforts to provide assistance to those
involved.”

Adams said the university already has received
inquiries from students attending colleges in the storm zone
seeking information about possible transfer to UGA. He said
the university will examine those on a case-by-case basis,
giving first priority to Georgia residents who previously
applied and were admitted to UGA but chose to attend an
institution now impacted by the storm.

Vice President for Student Affairs Rodney Bennett
said the institution has been requested by the American Red
Cross to make housing space available to families displaced
by storm damage. Bennett said the university is prepared to
make some units available for Red Cross assignment.

The university will join its fellow Southeastern
Conference schools in a joint contribution to storm relief
at affected institutions. Plans also are being developed
for an appropriate special collection at a future home
football game, with money to be directed through an
existing, certified relief agency.

Good stuff.
With something like 90,000 people attending the home games here, UGA should raise quite a bit of cash to help with the relief.

 

[U2Girl1978]

Unbelievable how many idiots come out of the woodwork.

 

[DaveC]

Was that in a major newspaper in Philadelphia?

Sorry, I should have clarified (didn't realize that there wasn't a tagline on the part I posted). It's from RepentAmerica's official website, their official news release.

 

[Bonochick]

This was posted at another board:

"The mood in Houston is a city, as one, putting its shoulder to the wheel. Gallery Furniture is allowing families to sleep on beds in its showroom, and is feeding them as well. The local hotels have relaxed pet policies and in many cases rates; the sounds at the downtown Hyatt are of dog barks echoing up the capacious lobby. The public schools are volunteering to take in children whose families were displaced; this will probably result in extensive babysitting, but will at least give the parents a break. And the money, to hear it, is pouring in. AM sports stations, in conjunction with local eateries, are auctioning off dinner with local sports celebrities for thousands of dollars apiece. And, in a well-needed dose of mirth, one FM hard rock station offered a deal for listeners: any song--ANY song--in return for a hundred-dollar donation. So listeners are calling in with requests for Bing Crosby, Ethel Merman, and Don Ho."

 

[MissVelvetDress_75]

I can't even begin to imagine how this must be for all who are living in these conditions and for those who are trying to provide assistance.

[q]Unrest Intensifies at Superdome Shelter

By ADAM NOSSITER, Associated Press Writer 36 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - Fights and trash fires broke out, rescue helicopters were shot at and anger mounted across New Orleans on Thursday, as National Guardsmen in armored vehicles poured in to help restore order across this increasingly desperate and lawless city.

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing.

An additional 10,000 National Guardsman from across the country were ordered into the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast to shore up security, rescue and relief operations in Katrina's wake as looting, shootings, gunfire, carjackings spread and food and water ran out.

But some Federal Emergency Management rescue operations were suspended in areas where gunfire has broken out,
Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said in Washington. "In areas where our employees have been determined to potentially be in danger, we have pulled back," he said.

"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, "You better come get my family.

Police Capt. Ernie Demmo said a National Guard military policeman was shot in the leg as the two scuffled for the MP's rifle. The man was arrested.

"These are good people. These are just scared people," Demmo said.

The Superdome, where some 25,000 people were being evacuated by bus to the Houston Astrodome, descended into chaos.

Huge crowds, hoping to finally escape the stifling confines of the stadium, jammed the main concourse outside the dome, spilling out over the ramp to the Hyatt hotel next door — a seething sea of tense, unhappy, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder up to the barricades where heavily armed National Guardsmen stood.

Fights broke out. A fire erupted in a trash chute inside the dome, but a National Guard commander said it did not affect the evacuation. After a traffic jam kept buses from arriving at the Sueprdome for nearly four hours, a near riot broke out in the scramble to get on the buses that finally did show up.

Outside the Convention Center, the sidewalks were packed with people without food, water or medical care, and with no sign of law enforcement. Thousands of storm refugees had been assembling outside for days, waiting for buses that did not come.

At least seven bodies were scattered outside, and hungry, desperate people who were tired of waiting broke through the steel doors to a food service entrance and began pushing out pallets of water and juice and whatever else they could find.

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

"I don't treat my dog like that," 47-year-old Daniel Edwards said as he pointed at the woman in the wheelchair. "I buried my dog." He added: "You can do everything for other countries but you can't do nothing for your own people. You can go overseas with the military but you can't get them down here."

Just above the convention center on Interstate 10, commercial buses were lined up, going nowhere. The street outside the center, above the floodwaters, smelled of urine and feces, and was choked with dirty diapers, old bottles and garbage.

"They've been teasing us with buses for four days," Edwards said.

People chanted, "Help, help!" as reporters and photographers walked through. The crowd got angry when journalists tried to photograph one of the bodies, and covered it over with a blanket. A woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm.

John Murray, 52, said: "It's like they're punishing us."

The first of hundreds of busloads of people evacuated from the Superdome arrived early Thursday at their new temporary home — another sports arena, the Houston Astrodome, 350 miles away.

But the ambulance service in charge of taking the sick and injured from the Superdome suspended flights after a shot was reported fired at a military helicopter. Richard Zuschlag, chief of Acadian Ambulance, said it had become too dangerous for his pilots.

The military, which was overseeing the removal of the able-bodied by buses, continued the ground evacuation without interruption, said National Guard Lt. Col. Pete Schneider. The government had no immediate confirmation of whether a military helicopter was fired on.

In Texas, the governor's office said Texas has agreed to take in an additional 25,000 refugees from Katrina and plans to house them in San Antonio, though exactly where has not been determined.

In Washington, the White House said
President Bush will tour the devastated Gulf Coast region on Friday and has asked his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and former
President Clinton to lead a private fund-raising campaign for victims.

The president urged a crackdown on the lawlessness.

"I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this — whether it be looting, or price gouging at the gasoline pump, or taking advantage of charitable giving or insurance fraud," Bush said. "And I've made that clear to our attorney general. The citizens ought to be working together."

On Wednesday, Mayor Ray Nagin offered the most startling estimate yet of the magnitude of the disaster: Asked how many people died in New Orleans, he said: "Minimum, hundreds. Most likely, thousands." The death toll has already reached at least 121 in Mississippi.

If the estimate proves correct, it would make Katrina the worst natural disaster in the United States since at least the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which was blamed for anywhere from about 500 to 6,000 deaths. Katrina would also be the nation's deadliest hurricane since 1900, when a storm in Galveston, Texas, killed between 6,000 and 12,000 people.

Nagin called for a total evacuation of New Orleans, saying the city had become uninhabitable for the 50,000 to 100,000 who remained behind after the city of nearly a half-million people was ordered cleared out over the weekend, before Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast with 145-mph winds.

The mayor said that it will be two or three months before the city is functioning again and that people would not be allowed back into their homes for at least a month or two.

"We need an effort of 9-11 proportions," former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now president of the Urban League, said on NBC's "Today" show. "So many of the people who did not evacuate, could not evacuate for whatever reason. They are people who are African-American mostly but not completely, and people who were of little or limited economic means. They are the folks, we've got to get them out of there."

"A great American city is fighting for its life," he added. "We must rebuild New Orleans, the city that gave us jazz, and music, and multiculturalism."

With New Orleans sinking deeper into desperation, Nagin ordered virtually the entire police force to abandon search-and-rescue efforts Wednesday and stop the increasingly brazen thieves.

"They are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas — hotels, hospitals, and we're going to stop it right now," Nagin said.

In a sign of growing lawlessness, Tenet HealthCare Corp. asked authorities late Wednesday to help evacuate a fully functioning hospital in Gretna after a supply truck carrying food, water and medical supplies was held up at gunpoint.

The floodwaters streamed into the city's streets from two levee breaks near Lake Pontchartrain a day after New Orleans thought it had escaped catastrophic damage from Katrina. The floodwaters covered 80 percent of the city, in some areas 20 feet deep, in a reddish-brown soup of sewage, gasoline and garbage.

The Army Corps of Engineers said it planned to use heavy-duty Chinook helicopters to drop 15,000-pound bags of sand and stone into a 500-foot gap in the failed floodwall.

But the agency said it was having trouble getting the sandbags and dozens of 15-foot highway barriers to the site because the city's waterways were blocked by loose barges, boats and large debris.

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu toured the stricken areas said said rescued people begged him to pass information to their families. His pocket was full of scraps of paper on which he had scribbled down their phone numbers.

When he got a working phone in the early morning hours Thursday, he contacted a woman whose father had been rescued and told her: "Your daddy's alive, and he said to tell you he loves you."

"She just started crying. She said, `I thought he was dead,'" he said.

___

Associated Press reporters Holbrook Mohr, Mary Foster, Robert Tanner, Allen G. Breed, Cain Burdeau, Jay Reeves and Brett Martel contributed to this report.[/q]

 

[one4u2]

Now reports are saying Fats Domino is missing

 

[U2dork]

I read about that earlier today. A friend said he and his family were trying to sit out the storm in their home but his neighborhood is completely flooded. It doesn't sound good.

It's all becoming so unbearable to read about. People's lives are at stake and the emergency crews pull out because of reported gunfire. Bodies everywhere. I'm sitting here wondering when is it going to stop getting worse?

 

[sue4u2]

I just made it home from my Mom's house about 20 miles north of Mobile and I can tell you it is just unnatural what this storm has done to the gulf coast. Mom's power came on last night and mine, today. We've had damage here in southern AL. but nothing compared to N.O. or even Mississippi.
Had to manuever around downed trees and power trucks and the worst gas lines I've seen - even during the 70's gas crisis. I spent the morning searching out gas stations and waited in one line for a couple of hours. There are limits on how much gas one can get which include one vehicle tank and 2 gas container's. I filled up my mom's car and one 5 gal. for the friend of my brother's who is on oxygen and his generator was running out & a 2 1/2 gal for my brothers truck so he can go sit in line to fill up. This city is full of people from the most devastated areas of MS & La, who have lost their homes and livelyhoods. I am going to try to look for and post some messages on the various sites that are asking about family and or friends. I got a few #'s at the grocery store and gas line this morning.
I'm just crying for these people because I can!! understand what terror a hurricane can put you through but I've not gone through a cat. 4 storm.. and I won't either
We received at least cat. 2 winds (90 + winds but not sustained, there is a difference) and I can promise you one thing there is no question about leaving the next time a storm is bearing down on this part of the country. Aug & Sept. are peak hurricane months, correction and I have this horrible sense of dread.
There are still about 125,000 people without power in the county at this time. I'm happy my power is on but it's a weird feeling of guilt because so many have so little or nothing at all.
I've had to stop watching the footage for a while and just listen to music because I'm getting depressed.
I'll be ok, however.

 

[kellyahern]

Glad you're okay sue .

 

[kellyahern]

Doctors at New Orleans Hospitals Beg for Help
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE, AP

(Sept. 1) - Doctors at two desperately crippled hospitals in New Orleans called The Associated Press Thursday morning pleading for rescue, saying they were nearly out of food and power and had been forced to move patients to higher floors to escape looters.

"We have been trying to call the mayor's office, we have been trying to call the governor's office ... we have tried to use any inside pressure we can. We are turning to you. Please help us," said Dr. Norman McSwain, chief of trauma surgery at Charity Hospital, the largest of two public hospitals.

Charity is across the street from Tulane University Medical Center, a private facility that has almost completed evacuating more than 1,000 patients and family members, he said.

No such public resources are available for Charity, which has about 250 patients, or University Hospital several blocks away, which has about 110 patients.

"We need coordinated help from the government," McSwain said.

He described horrific conditions.

"There is no food in Charity Hospital. They're eating fruit bowl punch and that's all they've got to eat. There's minimal water," McSwain said.

"Most of their power is out. Much of the hospital is dark. The ICU (intensive care unit) is on the 12th floor, so the physicians and nurses are having to walk up floors to see the patients."

Dr. Lee Hamm, chairman of medicine at Tulane University, said he took a canoe from there to the two public hospitals, where he also works, to check conditions.

"The physicians and nurses are doing an incredible job, but there are patients laying on stretchers on the floor, the halls were dark, the stairwells are dark. Of course, there's no elevators. There's no communication with the outside world," he said.

"We're afraid that somehow these two hospitals have been left off ... that somehow somebody has either forgotten it or ignored it or something, because there is no evidence anything is being done."

Hamm said there was relief Wednesday as word traveled throughout University Hospital that the National Guard was coming to evacuate them, but the rescue never materialized.

"You can imagine how demoralizing that was," he said.

Throughout the entire city, the death, destruction and depravity deepened even as the hurricane waters leveled off.

"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking pot shots at police and at helicopters, telling them, 'You better come get my family."'

Richard Zuschlag, president of Acadian Ambulance Service Inc., described the chaos at a suburban hospital.

"We tried to airlift supplies into Kenner Memorial Hospital late last evening and were confronted by an unruly crowd with guns, and the pilots refused to land," he said.

"My medics were crying, screaming for help. When we tried to land at Kenner, my pilots got scared because 100 people were on the helipad and some of them had guns. He was frightened and would not land."

Zuschlag said 65 patients brought to the roof of another city hospital, Touro Infirmary, for evacuation Wednesday night spent the night there. The hospital's generator and backup generator had failed, and doctors decided it was safer to keep everyone on the roof.
"The hospital was so hot that with no rain or anything, they were better off in the fresh air on the roof," he said.

When patients have been evacuated, where to take them becomes the next big decision.

"They're having to make strategic decisions about where to send people literally in midair," said John Matessino, president of the Louisiana Hospital Association. "It's a very difficult thing to prioritize when they're all a priority."

Knox Andress, an emergency nurse who is regional coordinator for a federal emergency preparedness grant covering the state, said it's impossible to underestimate the critical role hospitals are playing for anyone left in the city.

"They're running out of their medications, they're running out of money. They're having social issues and where do they go? They go to the hospital. The hospital is the backbone of the community because the lights are always on," he said.

When hospitals can't take care of people and the rescuers need rescued, there's no social fabric left, Andress said.

Hospitals weren't the only facilities with troubles.

Louisiana Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, who has been working with search and rescue, confirmed that 30 people died at a nursing home in St. Bernard Parish and 30 others were being evacuated. He did not give any further details.

Associated Press writers Melinda Deslatte, Wendy Benjaminson, Janet McConnaughey, Adam Nossiter and Brett Martel contributed to this report from Louisiana. Medical writer Marilynn Marchione is based in Milwaukee.


09-01-05 13:09 EDT

 

[Lila64]

I just made it home from my Mom's house about 20 miles north of Mobile and I can tell you it is just unnatural what this storm has done to the gulf coast. Mom's power came on last night and mine, today. We've had damage here in southern AL. but nothing compared to N.O. or even Mississippi.
Had to manuever around downed trees and power trucks and the worst gas lines I've seen - even during the 70's gas crisis. I spent the morning searching out gas stations and waited in one line for a couple of hours. There are limits on how much gas one can get which include one vehicle tank and 2 gas container's. I filled up my mom's car and one 5 gal. for the friend of my brother's who is on oxygen and his generator was running out & a 2 1/2 gal for my brothers truck so he can go sit in line to fill up. This city is full of people from the most devastated areas of MS & La, who have lost their homes and livelyhoods. I am going to try to look for and post some messages on the various sites that are asking about family and or friends. I got a few #'s at the grocery store and gas line this morning.
I'm just crying for these people because I can!! understand what terror a hurricane can put you through but I've not gone through a cat. 4 storm.. and I won't either
We received at least cat. 2 winds (90 + winds but not sustained, there is a difference) and I can promise you one thing there is no question about leaving the next time a storm is bearing down on this part of the country. Aug & Sept. are peak hurricane months, correction and I have this horrible sense of dread.
There are still about 125,000 people without power in the county at this time. I'm happy my power is on but it's a weird feeling of guilt because so many have so little or nothing at all.
I've had to stop watching the footage for a while and just listen to music because I'm getting depressed.
I'll be ok, however.

Also glad to hear you are ok

 

[sue4u2]

Thanks, I'll take those hugs and pass them along
I'm cooking for my son and some friends who are still without power. I ahve friends coming in to shower and get ready for work tomorrow.
Speaking of work, we were called in yesterday but when I got there I just had to sign in and go home. They're going to pay us for a few days we missed, I think.

 

[Miringeltje]

Taking a deep breath and letting out a sigh...

WOW, after a few very busy days with no TV, very little internet and only knowing Katrina was coming, I'm just now hearing and seeing what has happened......

and I'm left speechless.

 

[MissVelvetDress_75]

Now reports are saying Fats Domino is missing

He has been found alive.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20050902/en_music_eo/17283

 

[Jack In The Box]

today I found an old friend from High school in MSN, well, I felt deeply insulted because his nickname, he's one of these morons that hate the whole country (USA) just because a Government that the world doesn't approve (I don't, at least)... well, his nickname was allusive to this tragedy in a mocking tone... I blocked him... what a jerk

 

[AliEnvy]

I just can't believe what I'm seeing.

I've gone from being very sad to extremely mad.

The lack of appropriate and timely emergency response is UNACCEPTABLE.

And it's the underlying reasons that make it even more disgusting.

 

[Numb1075]

Piece of an article from CNN dot Com:

one of the officers said that some of the inmates at the Orleans Parish jail may have taken control of the prison. From what we are hearing, the prisoners have weapons. They have not left the jail. They can't get out. But we heard that they have control of weapons inside the jail.

can this situation get any worse?

 

[redkat]

NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 10:09 a.m. ET Sept. 2, 2005
NEW ORLEANS - An explosion jolted residents awake early Friday, illuminating the pre-dawn sky with red and orange flames over the city where corpses rotted along sidewalks and thousands remained stranded — crying for food, water and a way to evacuate.

Congress was rushing through a $10.5 billion aid package, the Pentagon promised 1,400 National Guardsmen a day to stop looting, New Orleans' airport had become the largest medical evacuation site in U.S. history, and President Bush was en route to the region Friday.

But city officials were seething with anger about what they called a slow federal response to the catastrophe.

It seems like it does continue to get worse

 

[Pop Artist]

Unbelievably, some people working at DirectNIC, an ISP in downtown New Orleans, have managed to keep their internet lines and ISP up the entire time and have been posting up to the minute photos from there...they even have a live webcam going. Their LiveJournal is here and has links to photos and webcam: http://www.livejournal.com/users/interdictor/

Still a lot of people wandering around in town...

 

[Palace_Hero]

While this may not be as expansive as the Tsunami was and that with the hurricane we did have enough warning to evacuate cities and get people as much out of harms way as possible this is most likely one of the worst natural disasters that we've suffered here in the US so in essence it is our version or at least feels like our version of the Tsunami.

I have to say, this is the sort of comment that makes me resent America.

New Orleans is your tsunami? You don't fucking claim a disaster on such a massive scale. The asian tsunami should have been as relevant to you as this hurricane has been, just as 9/11 was forced down our throats overseas as a world disaster.

And for the record I feel the same way about Australia, in relation to the Bali bombings. That became Australia's disaster. For the love of god; Beslan, Asian Tsunami, the London Underground Bombings, 9/11, the recent stampede.. It is all the same and we should treat it as such, not sit behind computers and be in awe because it happened to America.

My thoughts are with the affected.

 

[Numb1075]

mayor of N.O. just said that many of the looters and thugs roaming around are drug addicts who have lost their drugs and lost their contacts to get more drugs and are just going crazy.

 

[BEVERLY56]

It's hard to fathom that this is happening in one of America's major cities. I can't watch the news anymore, I just cry. Its hard to be in a different part of the country and unable to physically do anything. Money helps - but they need so much more. By the time the relief supplies get there, so many more will be dead.

Can't help but think of the Yahweh lyrics...

Take this city, a city should be shining on a hill...
Take this city, if it be your will.

What no man can own, no man can take.
Take this heart and make it break.

 

[LarryMullen's POPAngel]

I have to say, this is the sort of comment that makes me resent America.

New Orleans is your tsunami? You don't fucking claim a disaster on such a massive scale. The asian tsunami should have been as relevant to you as this hurricane has been, just as 9/11 was forced down our throats overseas as a world disaster.

And for the record I feel the same way about Australia, in relation to the Bali bombings. That became Australia's disaster. For the love of god; Beslan, Asian Tsunami, the London Underground Bombings, 9/11, the recent stampede.. It is all the same and we should treat it as such, not sit behind computers and be in awe because it happened to America.

My thoughts are with the affected.

Who says we're not? And, so nice of you to refer to 9/11 as being forced down your throats. I didn't see 24/7 coverage of the tsunami or the Bali bombings, etc. that way.

 

[Numb1075]

THIS HAS TO STOP:

One New Orleans police sergeant compared the situation to Somalia and said officers were outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks.

"It's a war zone, and they're not treating it like one," he said, referring to the federal government.

The officer hitched a ride to Baton Rouge Friday morning, after working 60 hours straight in the flooded city. He has not decided whether he will return.

He broke down in tears when he described the deaths of his fellow officers, saying many had drowned doing their jobs. Other officers have turned in their badges as the situation continues to deteriorate.

In one incident, the sergeant said gunmen fired rifles and AK-47s at the helicopters flying overhead.

He said he saw bodies riddled with bullet holes, and the top of one man's head completely shot off.

 

[ramblin rose]

I have to say, this is the sort of comment that makes me resent America.

New Orleans is your tsunami? You don't fucking claim a disaster on such a massive scale. The asian tsunami should have been as relevant to you as this hurricane has been, just as 9/11 was forced down our throats overseas as a world disaster.

And for the record I feel the same way about Australia, in relation to the Bali bombings. That became Australia's disaster. For the love of god; Beslan, Asian Tsunami, the London Underground Bombings, 9/11, the recent stampede.. It is all the same and we should treat it as such, not sit behind computers and be in awe because it happened to America.

My thoughts are with the affected.

I'm not sure what you mean? When the Asian tsunami happened it was on the news here all day, every day for weeks, and the commercial with Bush Sr. & Clinton asking American's to donate was on every night on multiple channels multiple times a day for months. When the bombings happened it was on the news every night for days/weeks also. I guess the only story that hasn't gotten similar coverage has been the stampede (although it has been on the news) I suppose because it coinceded with this disaster.

I never felt any of these other diasters were being shoved down our throats. In fact I felt just as bad as I do now seeing the tsunami/bombings victims suffer.

Why are you so bitter and cynical about everything?

 

[AliEnvy]

I have to say, this is the sort of comment that makes me resent America.

New Orleans is your tsunami?

Whoa, settle down.

It would seem all that was meant by the comparison is the similar suffering of the survivors post-natural disaster.

If you want to resent America, resent the slow response from the federal and state governments.

After all, the people worth helping were evacuated.

 

[WildHoneyAlways]

p_h, please take your hatred/resentment of America elsewhere.

Frankly, I don't give a damn what you think but thanks for trying to trivalize 9/11 and this natural disater with your comments re: it being forced down your throat.

 

[Lila64]

It's hard to fathom that this is happening in one of America's major cities. I can't watch the news anymore, I just cry. Its hard to be in a different part of the country and unable to physically do anything. Money helps - but they need so much more. By the time the relief supplies get there, so many more will be dead.

Can't help but think of the Yahweh lyrics...

Take this city, a city should be shining on a hill...
Take this city, if it be your will.

What no man can own, no man can take.
Take this heart and make it break.

 

[verte76]

As a participant in the nightmare that was Katrina, I feel that it's fully justified to refer to it as "our tsunami". Granted, I'm safe and all I lost was my power. Some of the stories I'm reading are just unbelievable. Deaths, looting, flooding, given that New Orleans is below sea level and their levees broke, yeah, it's hell here.