New Orleans.

Lisa and I used to live in New Orleans. We are so grateful we don't live there any longer. A friend of ours is safe and sound, we know, and is lucky to have left with her pets and to have a place to stay for as long as needed with her sister. We have many more friends who may be missing; we've e-mailed them and have not heard back, which leads us to fear that they are still in the city, and did not or could not evacuate. (Because, if you DID get out, you'd be checking your e-mail, wouldn't you, knowing people are worried?) It's mind-boggling to me, the conditions, the lack of planning....New Orleans and the state and the Federal Emergency Management Association has known forever that this is a poor city, with more than 120,000 families who don't own cars. They've known they could be hit and devastated by a hurricane. This one, which was supposed to be a Category 5 and hit them head-on, mercifully devolved to a Category 4 before veering slightly eastward. My point is, it could have been so much worse, and still the city, state and federal governments seem utterly unprepared. I've been preoccupied for days with trying--and failing--to imagine the horrible conditions. I understand looting for food, bandages, medicine, diapers, water. I don't understand stealing TVs, when you have no power and no home. I don't understand beating people, raping people, shooting at police officers and MedEvac helicopters. And I know it's the minority who are doing this, because most are too tired, scared, hungry and angry to even think of it. It's as if this is an excuse for people to commit crime as a hobby, not as a means to an end.

There are people dying there, waiting for help. Our government is on TV--George Bush, you fucker--saying "try to remain calm, be civil, we're coming." Hey, dumbasses, no one there has a TV, or a radio, or a newspaper. All they need right now is food and water and someone to drive around with a bullhorn giving them INFORMATION so they don't feel so alone and so hopeless and so scared. They truly think no-one is ever coming to help. I've seen people on the news wondering why the outpouring of help that came after 9/11 isn't coming to them. They wonder why Americans aren't caravanning down to get them. They don't know that money is being donated everywhere; they don't know that we can't come to get them, and that even if we could do that without hampering rescue efforts, there would not be enough gasoline for us to turn around and drive them back to our homes, to anywhere that is not New Orleans.

Older people, sick people, and babies, are dying in a major American city because we can't get food and water to them. Alexis is my niece. She is my child, for now, but not MY child. Yet there is nothing I would not do to get food for her. So I guess I was lying when I said I couldn't understand beating people, because if I had to do that to keep her from dying, I would. But for those people, even killing someone won't help. The thought of having to watch a baby die and be unable to help, when all she needs is something we take for granted every day, well, I can't fathom that any feeling would be worse.

Donate money if you can. If your company has a matching program, use it. If you have clothes and shoes around your house, ready for Goodwill, save them. They can't take them now, from what I understand, but they will soon be sorely needed for those who survive this hell on earth.