Hurricanes: Been There, Can't Fathom That

Hollow.

That's the only feeling I can muster when I watch the news reports from Mississippi and New Orleans. Hollow.

Hurricane Charley tore through our neighborhood last year, destroyed a huge tree in our yard, left us without power for nine days in an oppressively hot, humid August. Frances and Jeanne added insult to injury in the form of huge branches through our roof, water damage, and more powerless days. It took months to recover--months of sleeping everywhere but in my own bed, months of ducking under the plastic covering the huge hole in my bedroom ceiling, months of low-grade depression that didn't lift until I had a roof, a new ceiling, and normal life.

I cannot fathom what the people in Louisiana and Mississippi are facing. A friend of mine is a firefighter, someone in charge of a hurricane recovery task force who's flown to Mississippi to help. And there's nothing he can do. There's nothing there. No water, no food, no way out. Search and recovery is all they can do at this point; the time for search and rescue has passed.

I'm a little peeved that the international community that took us to task so harshly for our "stingy," "slow" response to the Asian tsunami hasn't lined up to help the people in our Gulf states. Those people have lost everything, and there's nothing to help them get back on their feet, since their livelihood is wiped out, too.

The nation came to our aid, and now it's our time to come to Mississippi's and Louisiana's. Donate what you can:

• Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
• American Red Cross