September 4, 2005

Hello,

I have spent the past two weeks in a small village in Spain. Next to no one speaks English and there are no non-Spanish papers available. I logged onto the internet after seeing an image of New Orleans Tuesday morning on the front page of El Pais in the town square's newsstand. I've been reading every article related to Hurricane Katrina The New York Times online edition has had to offer ever since. The sum of all this tragedy's parts is overwhelming to witness even from the other side of the world and through the small keyhole that I've found.

The undiscriminating devastation of nature and the human suffering, loss and death have left me in a state of disbelief. Most shocking of all is the fact that there has been the quickly emerging evidence that so much of this suffering could have been prevented if the most vulnerable (poor, elderly & sick) had been evacuated from the city along with the city's more privileged and able inhabitants.

For the past six days there has been a shameful series of images and accounts to behold:

• A poor black women over 80 years old being dragged out of 3rd story window into a motor boat.
• Terrified children clinging to total strangers and hysterical after being separated from their parents.
• Bands of armed thugs terrorizing flood victims and rescue teams.
• White tourists being loaded onto evacuation buses first while black, elderly and pregnant women watch in disbelief.
• New Orleans police deserting their posts and committing suicide.
• The mayor of New Orleans crying and begging for The National Guard to arrive while one third of a Louisiana's force is active in Iraq.
• Thousands of injured and dying victims lying on floors or left on baggage carousels in the New Orleans International Airport.
• Alligators swimming among the debris of shattered structures, trees and human corpses.
• Plumes of toxic smoke rising above the submerged city.
• Politicians bickering over who is responsible for the entire mess while there are still desperate, hungry and dehydrated people waiting on rooftops to be rescued.
• Homes blown from their foundations or plunged into the murky and toxic waters of Lake Pontchartrain and The Mississippi mixed with battery acid, fuel, raw sewage and whatever else the flood waters have dislodged.
• Families torn apart and scattered, 100,000 refugees in a state of disbelief and shock.

An irrepressibly eccentric city of legend and incomparable value to our national heritage has been wiped out. I've read several comparisons to the ancient Roman city of Pompeii...buried, irretrievable and lost.

I'm certain that if you have the means to donate to the relief effort, you already have. I've made donations to The Houston chapter of the American Red Cross, Feed The Children and The Salvation Army. If you haven't contributed yet and you need any help determining which groups are doing the work you want to support, this is a helpful site to visit: www.charitynavigator.org. They evaluate and rate various charities and have a list of those most involved in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.

Maybe the outpouring of charity and concern for the victims of this horrible storm and flood will begin to heal their suffering and make those of us watching and worrying from a safe distance feel less helpless.

Take Care,
Natalie