Vent (excuse the stream of consciousness and melodrama)

I've been trying to do what I can to help out the victims of Katrina. We've been back at work since Wednesday and are, I think, doing some good things like helping our clients get set up with office space and resources so they can pay their displaced employees, helping the big companies get their donations to the relief efforts together, gathering donations for National Guard helicopter troops, stuff like that. It just feels wrong and strange to be sitting here like normal, at my computer working, when all around me people are suffering terribly. Going home to air conditioning and cable TV and hot water and all the things you take for granted. I'm trying to do what I can in my spare time. Donating money. Wednesday night I heard on the radio that the Salvation Army was accepting donations of nonperishable food items to bring directly to the people stranded in New Orleans and the outlying areas, so we went shopping and donated a whole bunch of food and water, plus about a hundred peanut butter sandwiches that we made. My cousins from Chalmette, ages about 10 and 8, who have lost everything but don't really understand it, were excited about helping us make sandwiches for the hungry people. I heard yesterday that the Salvation Army was able to feed thousands of people with the donated items, so I hope it made a difference. Yesterday, Ryan, Sarah and I spent some time at the PMAC helping some of the people who were stranded there get onto buses and head to real shelters in northern Louisiana and Texas. Some of them were headed toward family and had a place to go, but some of them had no direction at all. It's surreal, seeing these evacuees on my campus, in the PMAC where I've been to basketball games, where I graduated from LSU, where I saw Sesame Street Live when I was a kid. It is absolutely numbing. People sitting there, staring into space, sleeping on the ground. Telling their stories. I've heard so many horrible, heartbreaking stories over the last few days. Everyone has lost something. It's awful. I don't know how in the hell Louisiana is going to recover from this. Even after the people who can be saved are saved, and the medical care is administered and the levees are fixed, it's going to be so long before we can even think about a livable New Orleans. How do you evacuate the largest city in your state? Where do all the people go? Where do they live, and work, and go to school, and shop, and everything? There are shelters all over the city, hotel parking lots are full, people have 10 cars in their driveways. Everyone seems to have relatives staying with them. There are no apartments to rent, houses are being snapped up like crazy. Where are these people going to live? What do you do when a major city is just gone? I'm hearing Baton Rouge is going to double in size. Where are we going to build the homes and offices and streets to manage that kind of population boom? And that's just Louisiana, I know surrounding states are taking in people as well, I've seen the pictures of the Astrodome just teeming with people. Some of these people are so poor, they have literally nothing with which to start their lives over. They are disconnected from family. It's just so bad. We've never encountered anything like this before. When I think about the kind of socioeconomic hit the state is going to take in the coming years, it's just unimaginable. No money aside from federal funding will be coming in. We are expending all of the resources we have just to keep people alive. Will they rebuild New Orleans? It seems like the oil and shipping interests of the nation make a functional New Orleans (in some form) a necessity. But what will New Orleans look like if it's rebuilt. I think it's gotta be mostly industrial, I've heard too many people who say they will never go back. They're looking for jobs and places to live in cities like BR, Lafayette, Houston, they are going to take the insurance money, build a new life and never look back. Then again, people in New Orleans and Louisiana are pretty strong of spirit, I am sure there are some people who will insist upon rebuilding and keeping the culture of the city alive. I hope they are successful. I can't imagine having the spirit of New Orleans die. It would be a great loss to the world, really. I can't believe that a storm that spent less than a day over our state can possibly wreak this much terrible and far-reaching havoc on the lives of so many people.

I just realized how desperate this sounds. I kind of started typing and couldn't stop. But I do believe it will be OK. The generosity and concern shown by so many people has been so touching and helpful, and I think the chaos will die down and we will get set and go to work. Things will never be the same, but we will survive and take care of each other, I don't doubt that. I just wish I knew what to do to start the recovery process.