Katrina

I just can't imagine what people affected are going through now. Mom got me to tune into the news last night and today, and she's right, it's devastating. And when the storm hit, the news just shows some blown off roofs, and I didn't think that much of it, but man....

It of course reminds me of having to evacuate hurricane Floyd when Mike and I were in Savannah. And even while we were driving on the wrong side of the freeway and the horrible traffic that crawled all the way to TN where he had a hotel room, it didn't really seem that big a deal. I mean, we didn't plan for more than a day, I think I took one pair of clean underwear. We gave nearly no thought of our possessions left in the apartment, overall, we thought it was a big hassle. (though, to be fair, the hurricane didn't hit Savannah or even Geogia, it hit New Jersey).

But what if it'd done to Savannah what Katrina did to LA and MS?

No job. No food. No gas, so no car. No phone. No money. I mean it doesn't matter if you were well off or a bum, you're universally SOL. If it were me, I guess I'd stare at the sky, see which way Arkansas was and start walking! I mean what do you do? I heard horror stories of the shelters that were hastily thrown up for students that fled Savannah, and it was basically a pound for humans. People came to the shelter and "adopted" refugees, and those I'd talked to said it was anywhere from freaky to downright unsafe and disgusting (think of crazy person with 30 cats kinda place).

And think what you will of our ruling government party, the system totally dropped the ball on being prepared for this. Those levies would've held if their funding hadn't been cut a couple of years ago. Their national guardmen are in Iraq. I mean "Homeland Security" should mean we're secure from Mother Nature, too.

And with those polar ice caps melting and upsetting weather systems, there are going to be more catastrophic storms to come, so I hope we learn all we didn't do right this time around.

Boy, I'm glad we're landlocked here in Austin!