Katrina

[Guest guest]

Hi, I live[d] 100 miles north of New Orleans in Mississippi. The

storm was Cat 2 at our location. I saw air doing things that if you

saw it as a special effect in a movie, you wouldn't believe it.

People came from north Mississippi to evacuate my elderly relatives.

I stayed with my son to keep an eye on the houses. We had no

electricity, water, communications for 5 days before my son and I

left. It was a pioneering struggle. Water was restored on Thursday

night, phones began to work somewhat on Friday, enough for us to

begin to see pictures of how much worse things were further south,

and how the lawlessness was approaching our area. My son and I left

Friday night; my brother returned with a generator and supplies on

Saturday. We expect power to be off for weeks. Many homes were

destroyed; a tree and a huge branch fell on my house, but a

powerline bore most of the stress, minimizing damage. I know elderly

people there who are prepared to sit in their chairs, in the 90-100

degree heat until they die. One shared generator powers my elderly

neighbor's oxygen machine. They can't find a hospital or nursing

home to take her. Resources are strained. The big Red Cross vans

were arriving just as we were leaving on Friday; that day we also

saw free ice distriburtion beginning to arrive. One day I salvaged

all the frozen vegetables from a neighbor's thawed, but not yet warm

deep freezer. We cooked freezer soup on a backyard propane cooker in

a huge pot; the remaining neighbors appreciated it. My son and I

cooked much of the frozen veggie meat substitutes we had before it

went bad; we took some of it with us north 100 miles to a town where

semi-relatives took in my mother and grandmother. There we began to

see the news on tv and pictures of the devastation. Our county has

spots of destruction, many along the path of the tornado that

destroyed my son's school in April. We have nothing so bad as it is

on the coast. People are unbelievably grateful for small things,

like a bag of ice, or a bowl of soup, or a gas can to power a

generator, or the use of a generator for an hour or two. My house is

partly underground, so the basement never gets warmer than 77

degrees, but most people are suffering with 90 degree indoor

afternoon temperatures. Power company trucks from several states

away can be seen where people are working feverishly to restore

basic services. Insurance agents are working constantly documenting

damage before trees are cleared away. Many homes are destroyed by

trees where we live. Rumors of gas send people driving 100 or more

miles trying to get some for survival.

 

If you want to help, I think the best thing is to send money to the

Red Cross.

 

Be of good cheer,

 

Dick

[Guest guest]

Thank you for sending in your story - and we're so very glad to know you and

your family are safe. It has been and will continue to be a horrendous

struggle.

 

All good thoughts and love go with you,

 

Pat