The day before Katrina struck, at 5:30 AM or so, I was flipping through radio stations in my car looking for something interesting to listen to on my way to work. We are working 7 days a week at my job, so anything that keeps me awake while commuting really helps. I happened upon a New Orleans radio station broadcasting the expected "Get out of town, a hurricane is coming" message. A catagory 5 hurricane is a quite infrequent event and listening to the news in New Orleans was compelling to someone like me who lives in hurricane territory.
I listened to them again on my way home that day and have during every commute since except for the morning the storm hit when the station was down for a few hours. http://www.wwl.com/ 870 AM if you can get it. After the storm The guys on this station sort of became heroes to me. Operating on emergency generators in a station with many windows blown out, the radio guys survive by drinking strawberry sodas and eating Klondike Bars that had melted and then refrozen. They have provided a valuable service by giving a voice to distressed people (and apparently relief agencies such as The Red Cross are listening), passing out warnings of dangers, and directing local people to others in their area in need of immediate rescue. I have been amazed and awed and proud of the spirit of the people I have heard. In case you have been hiding in a cave and have not heard the news, a several hundred mile stretch of the Gulf Coast and a couple of hundred miles inland has been reduced to 3rd world conditions and worse by hurricane Katrina. Ignore the "official" reports, there are thousands dead. A few millions are without electricity and almost as many homeless, either because of flooding or because of a storm surge whose power rivaled or exceeded the damaging power of the tsunami last Christmas. The levees around New Orleans have broken and brackish flood waters have poured in flooding 2/3 to 80% of the city. The painful stories I see and hear, the ones most difficult to bear, are of people seperated from their loved ones and who have no idea where they are or what has become of them, and of people who watched friends and family die before their eyes. And this is still ongoing. There are people with relatives who are diabetic or need dialysis who are getting very ill and the police cannot help, because they cannot communicate with the necessarry authorities. Most of those same police have lost their homes too, yet they still go to work and try to help as they can. Grief is the order of the day This disaster will effect the rest of us in America too. The storm knocked out about a third of the nations refining capacity and there is no telling when or if these refineries will come back on line. The really sad thing is the pitiful effort from the Federal Government. As I write less than 1300 people have been rescued by the Coast Guard and they were in the first wave of relief. This shows how pitifully prepared we are for a disaster of this scale. Everyday, I stop and think. If Katrina had moved a bit further west I might myself be dead or a refugee. My family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers might also. Everything I own, every physical trace of my existence might be destroyed. I'm going to see the Red Cross now and give them some money. And I'm going to hope that some of my fellow citizens find some relief from their hardships. xponent A Billion Tears And More Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
