I came home and watched the news. The disaster down south from Hurricane Katrina is so devastating. I can't figure out if the disasters are getting worse and more frequent or if it just seems so because we have massive news coverage, but either way, it's just heartbreaking. At first I thought many who stayed were stubborn or stupid, but when I heard on NPR that many people did not have cars with which to leave, or money for gas or hotel, it began to make more sense. I remember a time in my life when I did not have enough money to buy a sandwich, much less fill up a $40 tank of gas. So I can relate to being broke and having little or no choices.
Now, with a good job and a comfortable life, I can, at the very least, make a donation. Along with a donation to the Red Cross to help the people, I donated to the Humane Society to help the animals.
5 comments:
Hey Tina - thanks for the reminder - I had already donated to the HSUS Disaster Relief Fund too. There must be tons of pets seperated from their owners, in need of rescue and medical care. Most shelters for people won't take pets so often people must make heartbreaking choices in order to survive themselves.
Paula
I feel the same way, Tina. But I'm always worried that I my money is used in the best way possible and gets to those who really need it, especially because all of the stories we hear about misappropriation. But, you know what? There's no time to check this and check that, I just gotta do it and those two seem like good choices along with The Salvation Army. I'm doing it!
images from someone who was there (he says he was)
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1&Uc=xkicdlx.b147fdut&Uy=6dsgfn&Ux=1
I think the whole story of people not having enough money to leave is really not accurate. It's true for a very small portion of the evacuee population I would wager. I was at a shelter and everyone I talked to (granted I did not talk to everyone) had cell phones. If you can afford a cell phone, you can afford a way out. When I asked them why they stayed, they all said the same thing, "I didn't think it was going to be that bad." And really, they were right. The majority of them made it through the hurricane fine. It was when the levies started breaking that the disaster began to unfold. The worst was trying to take info from these people about missing family members. A lot of times they would start crying so hard I couldn't understand them. I feel that people stayed behind because they weren't really educated about the risks, especially those of the levies breaking. It was more of a, "get out of town, if you can't then go to the superdome"
~Andrea
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