thatgrrrl's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally. There have been so many words written about Hurricane Katrina and all the bad stuff that has happened, and is continuing to happen, in the Gulf Coast cities and states, that there's no way I can write anything more about all of that. What I can write about is how I feel about it. Helpless. Like I want to do and give more. I occasionally dip into Google News during the day at work, and every time I do, I feel like I should read everything that's written about it, and give all the money I have to the Red Cross, and at the same time, I know that I have to tear myself away from it, because I could wallow in it and get very depressed, which wouldn't be productive at all. And I have to continue to be productive, in my own way, to keep my own family afloat, not literally, but financially. However, it does piss me off, when I allow myself to think about it, which isn't often, because again, unproductive. What pisses me off is the slow response time. Conversely, when I read that a convoy of military trucks had reached New Orleans, I was glad. I can't imagine what it must be like for people there. I remember a couple years ago, when we had that bad ice storm in January, and were without power for 5 days. That was bad enough, and we still had heat from the fireplace, and water, and food we could cook on the grill, and each other. The people there, lots of them don't have any of that, except they have more heat than they need because it's freakin' SUMMERtime in the SOUTH. And they're staring down the tunnel at MONTHS of deprivation. I have mixed feelings about the whole "they chose to live in a floodplain/city 30 feet below sea level, it's their own damn fault" concept. While I initially felt that way, my feelings have morphed toward the "nobody deserves to have that happen to them" arena. I have no doubt that the people who could get out, most of them, did. Of course, the idiots who could have, and didn't, well, THEY fall firmly into the "deserving" category. However, the ones who had no car, no money, and nobody to hitch a ride with outta town, those are the ones who I feel the worst for. Or the elderly, or the people in hospitals, and like that. D and NS and I were talking tonight about what if she had been on her own, in a situation like that, how would that have been? Apparently, one time when their son was small, her neighborhood had to be evacuated because of a truck that overturned and spilled a load of chemicals. She had to stay with her mom, her sister, and her sister-in-law, over the course of x number of days. But what if she'd been in a city where she didn't have any friends or relatives? And there are probably thousands of people like that in New Orleans. And of course, when I say New Orleans, I'm just using that as a shortcut to say all the cities, towns, villages, hamlets, and urbs of any kind that have been affected in any way by Katrina. Oh, another thing that pisses me off: National Guard troops in Iraq. Um, hello? Aren't they supposed to be at HOME? And now that we need them, where are they? Oh, way the FUCK over there in the middle of a desert. Not their fault, and they're just doing their jobs as they were told to by their boss. However, their boss is wrong to have sent them over there in the first place. Also this: EVERYONE should have known that the levees would fail in the event of a catastrophic hurricane, if they were already failing or starting to fail when it wasn't a hurricane. I mean, come on. Duh. And when New Orleans asked for help with fixing them? "No, sorry, we have to send more money to Iraq. Can't help ya. Too bad, so sad." And now there are thousands of people trying to live in what is essentially a big bathtub full of poopy water and dead bodies. But at least things are finally starting to happen, relief is finally starting to arrive, and help is finally starting to seem like something that might actually be possible. Finally. 8:14 p.m. - 2005-09-02 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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