Thursday, September 1, 2005

Hurricane Horrors
The news at 6:00 A.M. today was a nightmare from beginning to end...all about Hurricane Katrina's residue in New Orleans. The footage was horrible. People still sit up on their roofs waiting to be rescued, watching as the swirling waters around them carry dead dogs/cats/people as well as live alligators and snakes. Alligators feed on dead people and animals.

Then what about the inside of the Super Dome with 10,000 people still trapped without water or food or air-conditioning. None of the toilets work. Desperate, disconsolate souls are jumping off the upper levels trying to kill themselves.

A hospital has barricaded its doors because mobs of hoodlums outside keep trying to break in and steal the drugs. Doctors and nurses have stayed onsite since the hurricane, afraid to leave. Meanwhile patients die like flies in the heat, lacking water and food and medication.

Government estimates that New Orleans will not be habitable for at least six months. The water situation is the worst challenge. Electricity could be restored earlier but so far no crews have tried to begin repairs...afraid of all those snakes in the water.

Then Lydia called to say that one of her three best friends is coming here to wait out the hurricane clean-up. Lydia's friend lives in the French Quarter. Her building is still there, but the place is not habitable. This friend spent the hurricane outside of New Orleans holed up in a shed on someone's ranch. All of her possessions are gone. She literally is left with what she wore when she left her house. She has to beg someone for a ride to the airport in order to come to Norfolk. Lydia got her a ticket but is uncertain whether that flight will take off as scheduled.

Tell you what, if a hurricane threatens Norfolk, I will be one of the first people out of town and into the mountains of West Virginia, watching it all on TV from a safe motel.

A couple of years ago, Hurricane Isabelle beat down Norfolk and quite a bit of that damage is still waiting for repairs. Lydia and Dan rode it out and stayed but they were sorry. The worst part was what came after the hurricane...no electricity for over a week, no air conditioning, nothing hot to eat or cold to drink, no hot showers. When Dan finally navigated streets without downed trees and reached Home Depot, all the generators had been sold already. All the food in their refrigerator and freezer spoiled. No milk for Benny. No coffee for Dan. No lights at night. No TV or radio. No land line telephone, and after the cell phone charge ran out, no cell phone either. Dan had to take business calls on his cell phone plugged into the car charger, driving up and down his street between downed trees, keeping one eye on the gas guage. No computers. Gasoline lines stretched forever at the few stations running their pumps on generators. Restaurants were closed and only a couple of fast food places stayed open. They soon ran out of almost everything as long lines waited outside. No one could get into or out of Norfolk due to flooding that closed all the bridges and tunnels. I've heard all the horror stories about Isabelle. Now I'm seeing this dreadful misery caused by Katrina. As I say, if another hurricane comes to Horfolk, I'll be the first person out of town.

This A.M. on TV I heard knuckleheads criticizing those in New Orleans who have stolen food, bottled water, and baby formula. Well, duh.... Others spoke disparagingly of those who stayed in the city in spite of numerous warnings to get out before the storm hit. Apparently it does not occur to some that not everyone has access to transportation. Even in the USA every city has a percentage of the deep down, truly poor. These people exist on government programs that provide basic food and shelter, but they have very few choices. Most of them are mentally ill and because the governemnt in the last twenty/thirty years has chosen to close down lunatic asylums, these poor souls live in half-way houses located in the inner city where no one has enough clout to keep them out. Staff at those places are not able to manage a client base of ten/fifteen adults with big, strong bodies and badly damaged brains. Here are those weird characters who wander the urban landscape burdened with enormous garbage sacksful of their possessions. Yesterday I saw one of them being given a ticket by a policewoman. The poor old guy laid up against a tree across from the hardware store between my house and the ghetto grocery. He spent all day there, yelling inappropriate comments to passersby. At 5:30 P.M. as I drove by, there was a policewoman writing him a ticket, I suppose, for vagrancy. Crazy. What's he supposed to do with that piece of paper? A man on a bicycle rode around and around the policewoman yelling, "You're mean!" Well, she had her job to do and I suppose someone complained about this pathetic individual. He's the kind that in New Orleans today sits up on a housetop watching alligators eat those who went to sleep and fell off during the night, lies over two or three seats in the Super Dome, a toilet-free zone with ten thousand similarly inconvenienced citizens. Those who even before the storm had no home, few possessions, no one to care about them...all of those people are the sad sight we see on TV today in the aftermath of Katrina. Those with money or with friends living elsewhere, used those resources and made an exit in time to avoid the horror.

Finally, I blame President Bush for part of the problem. No, he didn't send a storm to New Orleans. However, he sent the entire USA military somewhere on earth to kill people in places we have no right to be. All of our military might is spread around the globe doing dirt and making fools of us. If that vast military were still here at home, we'd have enough helicoptersand personnel to evacuate everyone still stuck in New Orleans. Also, we'd have space and food and beds on our many military bases here to take care of the homeless until New Orleans is liveable once more. Right now those helicopters are all overseas. Those bases are available, but there's no money for extra food, beds, care for the storm victims. I know our president likes to drag out the Bible as an excuse for his silliness. Well, I know the Bible, too. How about that verse, "Let each person study to do his own business." Wouldn't that mean to stay out of Iraq and everywhere else that's none of our business? Mmmhm, I think so. And how about this verse? "The man who does not provide for the needs of his own family is worse than an infidel." Wouldn't that mean that the president who makes it impossible for our country to take care of itself in an emergency is worse than any of these Muslims he's hell bent on eradicating? Yep. I do think so. Imagine that. President Bush worse than a mullah. And according to the Bible, too, the book he always waves around as his excuse to do the outlandish things which have us in this uncomfortable plight. My, my.

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