This week, I have more thoughts in my head and heart than these pages can contain.
Last week, my husband and I didn’t know where my mother’s only surviving sibling was located following the deadly hurricane. We knew that my sister-in-law and her husband evacuated Biloxi, Mississippi, but didn’t know about the condition of their homes. We watched in amazement after the water swallowed New Orleans, electrical power left much of Mississippi in the dark and no one came to help.
At times we became so transfixed with the media images that we had to tear ourselves away from the screen. Not knowing the whereabouts of family and wondering whether people you love have lost everything – and why the local, state and federal authorities left survivors to fend for themselves – left us exhausted, frustrated, ashamed and angry.
I reported on the 1993 flood in St. Louis. I stood on the line and filled sandbags. I climbed into the flatbed of a truck as a farmer pointed out the field that once held his prosperity in its soil, which was now under five feet of water and looking eerily like a lake. I went into homes that had water up to the ceiling. The smell of destruction was in the air.
I flew above the damage to see where the Mississippi River finally stopped eating away at everything in its path. I interviewed families who lost everything and the agencies helping them to navigate their way back in order to rebuild or relocate.
None of that compares to the crisis on the Gulf Coast.
It wasn’t long before the coverage of this crisis led to questions of ethnicity and economic strata. Was the federal response delayed because these folks were poor and largely black? How could it take the wealthiest nation on the planet a week to rescue people stranded in their water-logged homes? Why is the response to this historic disaster so uncoordinated? How can this nation defend itself against terrorism when we can’t even respond, rescue, save, feed or transport victims of a natural disaster?
We should all be concerned and outraged! And yet that outrage must make way for open hearts and homes for the hurricane victims coming our way.
And, my friends, we have yet to see the emotional toll of this disaster. People are in shock, and many of us still don’t know the fate of family members.
Thank God, on Sunday my husband and I learned that his sister’s house may have escaped damage in Biloxi. And my best friend’s family in New Orleans survived, but lost five homes. And a posted email led us to my aunt and uncle who were in Houston and praying that we would find them because they left in such a hurry that they took the wrong contact information for my mother and couldn’t find her number any other way.
But our relief is certainly tempered by the need to know just what went wrong and what can we do to ensure it doesn’t happen again.