Mud

I, along with most of our country, have watched streaming images of New Orleans for the past week. Towns gone. Cities looking like Atlantis. Bridges simply disappeared. People in horrible conditions. The best -- and worst -- coming out in people.

Every morning I eat breakfast while watching CNN. Then I read the newspaper with a cup of coffee. Finally I make my way upstairs to my computer where I read the e-mail version of the NY Times before really beginning my day. Today, that put things over the top.

There are thousands of tons of mud sloshed around Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana (not to mention the puddles still remaining through the Ohio River Valley). Now, instead of cleaning it up, the newest fad is to pick it up and toss it at someone else. Because, as we all know, that makes everything better. (please note the sarcasm)

Let me point some things out. One -- this was everyone's worst nightmare. The MOST that New Orleans was ever prepared to take was a moderate Category 3 storm. Katrina was 4 and just a smidgeon from being a 5. For you local folk: think Hugo, with Charleston being below sea-level. Two -- this is being compared to 9/11. This is not 9/11. 9/11 was concentrated within three places (several sq. blocks in NYC, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania). This disaster, aside from simply being natural in cause, is not comparable to 9/11. It covers more than three states and has left a city of 1.3 million people underwater.

I'll make this clear: I am not diminishing 9/11. However, 9/11 was a terrorist attack. This is not. This is a natural disaster that has left hudreds of thousands homeless and now we have over a million refugees from the region.

This is not a "black and white issue". Some people have said that nobody cares about the "blacks left in the city." Images of the Superdome, at least by my own estimation, show that my guess was correct. The people left inside represent the population distribution of New Orelans for the most part. According to the 2000 census, over 2/3 of New Orleans residents are African American. So the reason you see a lot of African Americans still left is, well, there were a lot to begin with.

There is a massive effort to get these people out of New Orleans. It is not a ho-hum kind of thing. They're trying as hard as they can to act as quickly as possible. However, when the folks on the ground act in uncivilized ways such as crowding helicopter landing pads, shooting guns at people trying to rescue them, and cause riots by not remembering their kindergarten lesson of "not cutting in line", it makes things difficult. Add to that most bridges going into and out of town are flooded, not to mention every road leading to the major shelters.

We can toss mud around all we'd like, but all we're going to end up with is some very dirty people. If we focused all of our "blaming" on trying to get these people out of the city and, even more, helping the over 2 million displaced residents, something good may come out of this after all.

When we moved to Baton Rouge in 1993, we were welcomed with open arms and discovered that southern hospitality really spans that far (and continued to for the two and a half years we were there). Of the over two dozen times I've visited New Orleans, I've never really encountered an unfriendly person... to add to that, they give you free jazz up and down the streets and offer you a taste of those incredible pralines.

My focus over the next year is going to be to return that same gesture of hospitality we were shown ten years ago. I'm going to do as much as I can to help out whoever I can. It doesn't matter to me who's to blame or what politics lie behind it all. These people are without houses, food, clothes, and so much more. So, we help build them houses, give them clothes, cook them food (red beans and rice with some spicy sausage mixed in sounds like a plan), and we give them a hug and say, "We love you."

Taking the words from a five-year-old, "It was a hurricane." There's nobody to blame. No one asked the hurricane to hit. That's all in the past. Let's focus on the present, so maybe, just maybe we can brighten the future of those people devastated by such a tragedy.

That's my take on things. It's time to help. And if all you want to do is talk or throw mud, then sit down, shut up, and let real people get the work done. It's just that simple.

Praying that the good in everyone will emerge,
chris

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