New Orleans

The situation in New Orleans started out okay. Newscasters were discussing all day how the city had “dodged a bullet,” and I felt both relieved and guilty. My home was spared, our families’ homes were not. But as the day goes by, it looks like things in New Orleans are bad as well. The levees breached. No one knows how much damage there is yet. We might have lost our house after all.

Jeane Meserve was just on CNN. We’ve been watching her, along with every other national reporter, give reports from New Orleans for several days now. In this report, her voice was wavering as she talking about how catastrophic the situation has become. She was in a boat in New Orleans East, in the dark. She said she could hear people begging for help from their rooftops, and she said she’d seen dogs in the flood waters, entangled in fallen power lines and being electrocuted. She sounded awful, and it was obvious by listening to her voice that the things she was seeing were incredibly disturbing to her. After the past few days of constant fear and stress, I finally lost it. Completely lost it. Went out on the porch and cried and cried and cried. I haven’t cried like that since Charles died. What do we do now?