Tales from Hurricane Katrina

My first college roommate lived in Bay St. Louis, a paradise that was ground zero for Hurricane Katrina. He just sent me a link to these gripping tales, written by a town survivor, detailing the horrors of the hurricane and its aftermath there and in New Orleans. Absolutely riveting ... and a cautionary tale for anyone expecting help to arrive. As one policeman told a woman there, she "might be standing on American soil, but it wasn’t America any more."

Here's a blog about battling insurers and bureaucrats to rebuild. As the author writes, ten months after the hurricane "some relief workers who had been working on the December 2004 Asian Tsunami relief effort toured New Orleans and were shocked that so little had been done. They concluded that in Third World countries such as Indonesia, the people weren't hindered by government agencies and the insurance industry." It's sad how things are run here nowadays. And scary.