Katrina

My recent travel has caused me to be in a bit of a news bubble. In the back of my mind I knew that a hurricane was about to strike the Gulf Coast, but there are hurricanes every year and people suffer and they rebuild. It really wasn't until the last day or so that the magintude of this has really struck me. This storm has reduced New Orleans to an uninhabitable swamp. Most likely, the city will never recover.

And on a more human level, nothing seems to be working. Where the people of this country banded together after 9/11 and attempted to help each other out. In New Orleans it's been chaos with armed gangs taking over, people dying in the streets, trash everywhere and even women getting raped. And the response has been slow. For some people it's been a week without food or water. Horrible.

I see only small rays of hope. My coworker has taken the day off to volunteer. Her friend works at Home Depot and they are preparing supplies and care packages to send out there. They will probably do more good than FEMA.

Two more thoughts on this tragedy. 1. That FEMA dude is wacky. He blames the people who "chose" to stay for their own situation. I'm sure many who stayed were elderly or poor, or had other reasons that they could not hop in an SUV and relocate on a days notice. 2. If we can't take care of New Orleans, how can we ever hope to take care of Iraq? That's how everyone outside the White House is going to see it.