Counting my blessings... (Karina related)

[Bruce S Kershaw]

I just got out of a nice, hot shower.

I put on some clean, dry clothes, popped a beer, and sat down in a comfortable chair, in front of my computer.

I had a good meal earlier, and will probably eat more than I should for breakfast.

I know where all my loved ones are and that they are safe tonight, even my pets.

Tonight, I will fall asleep in the air conditioned privacy of my own bedroom, with a good, firm mattress under my back, and a soft pillow under my head.

In the morning, I will drive to work in my truck, with a full gas tank, to a job that still exists.

I

[P Doug (WA)]

Amen! again I say AMEN!

[Charlie Jones]

Really can make ya think can't it?

My son ran his semi from Jax, Fl to Mobile twice yesterday carrying loads of generators. While they were loading his truck for the second run he used all the money he could scrape up to buy diapers and baby food, loaded it into the cab of his truck and carried THAT with him back to Mobile.

I got an Email from him this afternoon (he was on DOT enforced time off- log book got way too many hours) and he informed me he had changed trucks- he is now a driver for the Red Cross and is back on the road heading to Mobile again. And intends to KEEP driving that route as long as needed.

My chest is popping

[kydocfrog]

My shop is a mess, the yard is a jungle, my work piling up. I sat at the office yesterday, internet on, images scrolling, and sun shinning outside and kept thinking "how can I sit here like everything is normal." It was, and still is, almost like some kind of survivor guilt.

I'm a former Army logistics officer, with some feel at least for the desperately difficulty of mobilizing the kind of effort needed to roll the trucks. I've been out for years but somehow wonder "what should I be doing..." My boss just retired a few months ago from the Coast Guard, full Captain, with major river security and transportation background. He knows those folks flying the choppers and trying to hold back chaos. We just kind of sat and talked for a while. I'm sure he feels even more like somehow he shouldn't be warm and dry in a nice office.

After 9-11, everyone said "Everything is different." But you could get your arms around 9-11. You could see it all at once, and you knew it would get fixed, and there was someone to blame. I think we responded wrongly, surrendering to fear and the agenda of demagogs, but you could understand it.

You can't get your arms around this one. No one person can see it all at once. There is nobody to look to except ourselves as the wheels come off and we discover how thin and fragile the non-sustainable society we have constructed is and how brutal the consequences--social, environmental, cultural, personal and economic--can be.

This, and our response as a society to it, will have a far more profound effect -- changing everything -- than 9-11 ever had. It is up to us all to determine if that response is postive or just more of the same short-term greed, quick fixes, near-sightedness, and self-delusion.

Pray for the people. Pray for your friends and colleagues. Pray also for the Republic. We all have a lot of thinking to do.

David Arnold

Vice President for Academic Affairs

St. Catharine College, KY

[JeffM]

My wife grew up mostly in NO, and her parents and youngest brother still live(d) there. All are out of the city and safe, though they're not sure about some friends. My wife watches web sites, trying to find out whether the flooding reached the neigborhood, whether the house has a roof, whether looters have left anything. We watch the death, destruction and chaos from a distance, pretty much powerless. It's so hard not to know anything for sure. And even if there is something to salvage, when, if ever, will NO be habitable again?

[Charlie Jones]

David- something to maybe put the scope of the disaster area into perspective. The news people have said several times that the devastastion covers some 90,000 square miles.

England, the country, covers 93,000 square miles.

Awesome huh? No wonder they are having troubles getting aid in.

[capt jake]

Jeff, NOAA has posted some 350 arial photos of the area. If you know the area you wish to look at (I'm sure you do) you should have no problem in locating your house. Link below.

I wish a speedy recovery for all involved. I also hope all of the looters/shooters are swept out to sea. :evil:

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/

[Barry Pyeatt]

Unfortunately the finger pointing and the blame game have already started in ernest. That is a sad commentary indeed. Certainly there will be a lot of second guessing as to what would have been appropriate and when it should have been anticipated. But the benefit of hindsight is that you can learn something from it if you don't start playing the political gamesmanship which will be blown way out of proportion to what is warrented.

People from the region will blame whoever they can point their fingers at and they will only be partly correct.

The saddest part of this is that if they rebuild, and they surely will, they will repeat many of the same errors since the budget almighty will not allow for a true solution to the problems. People who cannot evacuate due to physical, medical or economic critera, will always suffer the greatest and be focused upon by the media. That is news. They become the football and the greatest impact from a social basis. The greatest impact economically will most likely be felt for decads to come as the enitre region trys to find some stability and still allow people to return and rebuild some semblence of normal lives.

That we as a country don't learn to prohibit building or development in such situations is a sad commentary on our ignorance of the facts and setting aside of common sense. Build a city on a Gulf Coastline below normal sea level and flooding will occur when Nature takes control. Everything in its path will be devistated. And unfortunately, the political forces will legislate rebuilding efforts and most likely make the same inadequate measures to protect the infrastructure and the people who live there.

My heart goes out to everyone affected by this tragedy. Many thousands more people will become sick and many will die and be permanently impacted by this over the next few months and years as the worst effects are yet to come. Disease and people trying to take short cuts in cleanup and rebuilding. People will be allowed or worse yet, not prevented from occupying and trying to live in places that should be removed completely rather than repaired to minimal (Lack of standards).

I applaud the efforts of our law enforcement and public servants who are being overlooked and unfairly judged by some of the media. People all need to have some rest or they can't keep going indefinitely. And yet there is a tendency to say, "Where are they?" "Why are they not doing this or that?"

I see them making more than a human effort in trying to keep some semblence of order and still get people out of the area. As Charlie just stated, the affected area is close to the size of the entire country of England. With few roads that remain travelable in and out. None thru.

People are trapped, many can't physically get to where they can be even seen or heard to be rescued. The numbers of people that will die will be hard to measure as very few of the people will be able to account for others for many months if at all.

God bless them all, and everyone that is participating in any way that they can to help those impacted by this event.

[JeffM]

Thanks, Jake. My wife found those photos early on, and has managed to identify her parents house. The neighborhood is flooded, but roof appears to be mostly intact. I'd be willing to agree with you on shooters, but not necessarily the looters--what would you do if you were trapped in a city with all the grocery stores shut? But it's certainly true that New Orleans has long been a very poor, drug-ridden, violent city...

I agree that the blame game is starting too soon. People have an unrealistic idea of how fast help can be mobilized. Even so, I'm guessing that there'll be more than enough blame to go around.

Barry, what the government ought to do as part of the rebuilding is divert parts of the Mississippi to bring in sediment to raise up and rebuild the low areas and the rapidly-disappearing gulf coast wetlands. There are successful pilot projects ongoing, but plans to do this in a big way have been sitting on the shelf. The whole of coastal LA is river sediment, and it slowly settles as it sits. Before New Orleans was ever inhabited, the Mississippi channel naturally wandered over the whole delta region, depositing new sediment in low areas. By jailing the Mississippi between levees, New Orleans protected itself from these unpredictable floods in the short term, while dooming the whole area in the long term. Of course, it doesn't help that global warming is both increasing storm intensities, and also raising sea levels...