[Water, water, everywhere ... and all the boards did shrink.
Water, water, everywhere ... nor any drop to drink.

~S.T.Coleridge, from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"]



Look at the reporters who are "incensed" by the rampant looting. Look at the smugness from those distant from the situation who chastise the dumb southerners for not evacuating when they had the chance. It blows their minds how many idiots stayed to wait it out. It makes them shake their heads and make "tsk-tsk" noises into their shiny microphones.

Well, fuck the lot of them.

New Orleans and Biloxi are not rich cities. They are poor southern cities disproportionately filled with poor southern people -- people who may not have reliable transportation, people who live hand-to-mouth, people who have nowhere else to go, even if they had the means to get there.

And the evacuation was little more than a vague order to get the hell out -- under your own power and at your own expense. If you have, at your immediate disposal, reliable transportation, money for gas, and either distant family OR money for shelter, then this isn't a big deal. Of course you leave. You pack up everything you can and you head for higher ground. But it is somewhat less easy to do if you are lacking any one of these things, AND you have been informed that what little earthly lot you may claim is about to be destroyed. Do you hang on and try to save what you can? Do you let it go and return to less than nothing?

What the hell do you do?

* * * * *

In the sequel to Four and Twenty Blackbirds, there is a scene where a character does something (arguably) quite stupid for $300, here in Chattanooga (another poor southern city). I've been told by an early reader or two that this amount isn't enough -- that it's not believable that he would behave this way for such a pittance.

Well I've got news for you all -- around these here parts, $300 may well be your rent for a month. When you keep a roof over your head and pay all your bills on $10 an hour, $300 will fix your car, maybe -- or maybe buy back your car title from the shark you pawned it to in order to get groceries during a tight spot. If you're careful, it'll feed you for eight weeks, maybe longer. $300 can be the difference between going to a doctor or checking yourself into the emergency room, because you don't have any health insurance and at least the ER can't turn you away. It's the difference between taking a sick pet to the vet or tearfully dropping it off at the pound -- because you don't even have any money to have it properly put to sleep.

If every single person in New Orleans had a spare $300 and a car, most of them could have run.
Now turn on the TV again and look at how many stayed.

* * * * *

Look at the rescued citizens.

Some of them probably stayed because they figured it couldn't possibly be that bad. I've been through half a dozen hurricanes in Florida and southeast Texas myself, and each time you hear the dire predictions, you shrug a little. You get used to hearing it. You batten down the hatches, you check your batteries, and you wait it out. I have no doubt that there were people who stayed because they didn't believe the worst would ever happen. It was a nasty gamble, and they lost.

But watch CNN for an hour, if you can stand it. Look at the people being carried to the edge of the levees. Crippled old women being pulled out of attics. Exhausted families with raggedy, scared-looking dogs being lifted off rooftops. Small children being handed out of second story windows to men in boats. Crying old couples holding hands. These are the rest of the people who did not run.

They stayed because they could not run, and now they might die because they cannot swim.

* * * * *

Opportunistic shitheads are looting for profit, for all the fat lot of good it will do them.

But the looting began out of desperation. People who don't have the funds to drive fifty miles inland almost certainly do not have the money to stock up for a week's worth of food, diapers, pet kibble, or bottled water. Come Tuesday morning, the kids were getting hungry. The toilets weren't flushing anymore. The power was gone, and it wouldn't be back for months, maybe.

Besides, even if you had money and wanted to spend it, the stores were all closed.
There was no one to pay, and the goods were unattended. What the hell would you do?

* * * * *

Look at the money trail. Everyone knew the levees were in trouble. The city had been begging Uncle Sam for money to fix them, but federal money had slowed to a trickle. At least nine articles in the Times-Picayune from 2004 and 2005 specifically cite the cost of Iraq as a reason for the lack of hurricane- and flood-control dollars. There's cash to be followed, if you're interested. Go here and read.

* * * * *

Look at the helping hands. Last night I took some pride and hope in the airboats, pontoons, canoes and other assorted crafts that are coming into the city by the score. FEMA managers smiled like the cavalry had come in; men in lettered jackets began directing men in hunting fatigues to various quadrants of the city. Beat-to-hell trucks are backing up to the water's edge to haul away the sick and injured. It isn't a proper cavalry, I don't suppose. They have no uniforms, most of them. They're the fathers and sons and wives and daughters of soldiers overseas; or they're bayou folk who heard that warm bodies were needed.

They're Texans with medical and fire department personnel from Austin and Houston.
They're power crews from New York and California, making long caravans of equipment and vehicles.

Tennessee is sending volunteers too, because that's what it does. This morning I was passed by an old Ford Bronco towing a rickety fishing pontoon with a sign that said, "NOLA OR BUST." The driver probably had to take off work to make this trip. He may well have borrowed money for gas. It might cost him overtime, or repairs to that boat, or a trip to the doctor later on -- but he'll have a home to return to, and he knows how bad off he'd be if the waters rose here. And in this way, one person at a time, the nation rallies.

Come on down.
The world is watching.


[EDIT: (via a reader) "You can find your local chapter by punching in your zip code in the orange section of the left nav bar of this page: http://www.redcross.org/news/0,1074,0_312_,00.html " Mark it "Disaster Relief Fund."]