Song Lyric of the Day:
Young men on the corner / Like scattered leaves, /The boarded up windows, / The empty streets / While my brother’s down on his knees / My city of ruins / My city of ruins
Bruce Springsteen / “My City of Ruins”
10:14AM.
I can’t begin to describe the heartbreak and hopelessness I feel when I read about or watch the news coming out of New Orleans and the rest of our devastated Gulf Coast. Days after the hurricane passed, I am still crying over the loss of life, searches for missing loved ones, everything–I will never forget the video of a grieving Hardy Jackson describing how his wife was carried away by Biloxi floodwaters; even the reporter interviewing him broke down crying.
I don’t understand how FEMA, among other government agencies, was not better prepared for this. After all, for how many years now have they been warning about this, the worst-case scenario hurricane, hitting New Orleans? It is astounding that they did not have better rescue and evacuation plans in place. I know that it was never going to be a seamless rescue operation, but surely they could have done a bit better than they are doing now? And now I’m reading stories where said agencies are blaming people for not evacuating, conveniently overlooking the fact that most of the hurricane refugees did not have the means or money to evacuate. Not to mention tourists who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. How about we just focus on getting them all to safety?
As for the rampant looting, well, yes, looting is wrong, but most of the people I’ve seen on the news have been stealing what they need to survive–things our government is not able to readily provide them right now, like water, food, baby formula, diapers, and medicine. Has our goverment not taken notice of the people crying on the news every night for some water, food for their children, medicine for the elderly? One woman, looking quite frail, said she hadn’t had water or ice in three days. Hospitals are having to let their sickest patients die.
I do, however, believe that looters stealing things like TVs, radios, jewelry, and other items that aren’t exactly practical in a hurricane’s aftermath are taking a horrible situation and making it even worse. It’s not up to me to say which looters should be punished-some, all?-because I’m sure law enforcement agencies are already planning to deal with that somewhere down the road. What I have an even harder time understanding is people shooting at rescue helicopters, police, and the National Guard, bringing rescue and evacuation efforts to a standstill; that’s a kind of mentality that is completely foreign to me. But, again, we just need to focus on getting everyone safely out of the area.
Rich and I are planning on donating to the American Red Cross; we’re not sure how much yet, but we feel useless just watching the news, and have to do something, anything, no matter how small, to help. We are also going to take some clothes and canned goods to donate to the disaster relief trucks our local Wal-Mart has ready to dispatch to the Gulf. After discussing it with me, Rich also let one of his freelance clients, already taking in hurricane refugees themselves, know that if they hear of any other hurricane refugees coming into Knoxville, we can take a couple at our house. What possible better use for our guest room than for someone who really, truly needs a place to stay?
Last night we also shopped for some non-perishable groceries, in the instance of the worst-case scenario energy crisis we may all now be facing. It was a bit alarming to see how empty the shelves at Wal-Mart already were; we’re obviously not the only ones thinking along these lines. We managed to gas up both cars a few days ago, before gas prices zoomed past the $3 per gallon point. Needless to say, we are both very, very grateful to be able to work from home. I worry about our friends in Virginia, since almost no one there has an easy, short commute; some of my former coworkers were driving in from North Carolina, so I know they have to be feeling the sting of higher gas prices.
I’ll get off my soapbox now. I just had to share how I’ve been feeling about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, arguably our nation’s worst natural disaster in almost 100 years.
Pray for the people of New Orleans, Biloxi, Pass Christian, Gulfport, and Shreveport. Pray for the people of the Gulf Coast. Most importantly, just pray for our nation as a whole during this terrible time.
1:06PM.
Happy 25th Birthday, Samantha!
And Happy 23rd Birthday, Vanessa! (Again–I didn’t get to post on the actual date).
I love you both. I couldn’t have picked out better younger sisters if I’d tried.
