Scene of a Crime

I woke up in the middle of the night last night thinking about the hurricane victims, especially the ones in New Orleans. I just don't understand why it took so long to help people. It's not a naive thought or one placed there by the media. I just really don't understand. I'm filled with so much sadness for all of the people lost. I wish I had seen New Orleans before all of this happened. I wish citizens would have been allowed to pick people up in their SUVs or vans and to have joined the caravan to Texas. How much worse could things have turned out, had people been allowed to help? Even if it only helped a few hundred people, it would have mattered to them... and to the people who care for them. I read a coworker's account of being stuck in NO on "vacation". By Sunday when the evacuation was ordered, Greyhound and Amtrak had stopped running out of NO. Given the choice of going to the Superdome or staying home, I too probably would have chosen to stay at home.

I've been having some random thoughts on the whole situation. Obviously the most important worries are those for people, especially those who still need rescuing, care and those rebuilding their lives. I suspect in the coming months, as with 9/11, that we will learn about the other things lost. Some horrific, some sad, some strange. I wonder about all of the cemetaries - the ones people would tour or that were in movies set in NO. Did the coffins come loose? I remember when a family member died during El Nino a few years ago. The funeral was delayed twice. We were told the ground was so wet, if you buried someone, they would "pop back up" :O. That was a comforting thought :(. What about people about to be proscecuted for crimes? Crime scenes were completely destroyed, I bet. What about all of the people that don't have a photo of their parents or of their kids? In any city, I bet there are things everyone needs to get rid of. Why can't be those the only things lost? The world could do with a few less Epiladys, Foreman grills and pairs of parachute pants. Maybe the Gulf of Mexico would send us back some of the things we want if we started parachute pant sacrifices?