Charlyn: It's Been a Better Day:
We've all been feeling a little more optimistic today, seeing a little progress being made in terms of securing the city and getting the last people out. We've also heard from a few relatives and friends we hadn't been able to contact before.
We took the kids, my son Tyler (3), nephew (6), and nieces (3 and 9 months) swimming at a local pool. After a half an hour, the weather thwarted us again, when a rainstorm chased us inside.
It seems like weeks ago when we took the kids to Tyler's first soccer practice on Monday afternoon. He's been waiting excitedly for several weeks for this to start. We took all the kids to Target to buy a soccer ball and shin guards, and headed out to the fields. The kids had been cooped up in the house for a few days, so they jumped out of the car and ran to the soccer field to play.
Five minutes into it, a storm cloud brought lightning and we all had to run to our cars. In the rush to get home without getting soaked, I didn't notice right away how sad Tyler looked. I asked him, "What's wrong?" He said, "I couldn't go to soccer because the hurricane went to my house."
Charlyn: What's the Worst Week You've Had?
Your week starts normally, with a hurricane warning. You have to stay in the city because you have to go to work, and you really have no where to evacuate to, and no car to drive there anyway. Besides, you've ridden out hurricanes in your home for decades; even Betsy left you high and dry. So you stay.
Fast forward to Wednesday. You've spent days and nights on your roof, sleeping and watching for help with no food or water. You finally get rescued.
After you are "rescued" from your roof, you brave heat, crowds, little food and water, and unsanitary living conditions of the Superdome. Then you spend a couple of days on the unshaded side of a highway, waiting for a bus out of town. Then it happens -- you get a bus. Your week just got better, right?
Wrong. One Hurricane Katrina refugee died and many others were injured when a bus carrying them west from the Superdome in New Orleans overturned and rolled across a highway median. At least 10 people were taken to hospitals, several critically injured.[Opelousas Daily World]
Charlyn: A Phone Call:
Last night we heard a sound we hadn't heard in a week: a phone ringing. A man my brother-in-law knows from his office actually got a call through on the cell phone. He had managed to get back into Jefferson Parish and had checked on the office.
We have been so starved for information, scanning satellite images, transfixed to videos on TV, for glimpses of someone's house, or office. Any sign that anything survived the disaster, and what condition it might be in. Any sign of good news, or at least confirmation that all is lost.
We feared the worst for his office, since it is right next to Clearview Mall in Jefferson Parish. In the videos, we didn't recognize the mall at first; the front of Target has been blown away like a bomb fell on it, and the mall was submerged in water. But this man said the office was basically OK; the water had flooded parts of it but not the medical equipment, and the front glass wall was blown out.
A little hope returned at that good news. Hope that one day in the future, things might return to normal in that area. He may not have any patients for a while, but at least one doctor might get back to work in a month or two.
Charlyn: Saving Families:
The phone call we received got me to thinking about one of the tragedies of this disaster. Although it has been frustrating, not knowing the fate of friends, family and property, we are among the lucky ones. Most of our family and friends had the ability to evacuate the city when the need arose. (One is a New Orleans cop who remained behind to help, and one, Patricia's brother, was stranded in a nursing home in Kenner when the ambulance didn't show up.) Many uncles, aunts, cousins and friends, we have not been able to reach, but hope and pray that they escaped safely.
But my mother, my father, my sister and her family, my husband's mother, his sisters and their families are all OK. Someone said a few days ago, "To say I lost everything is an insult to God. I have my family."
Many, many others are not so lucky. When people are rescued from roofs, they often cannot all go together. A rescue boat that is almost full to capacity heads toward one person on a roof. When they get there, they are told that five more people are in the attic, 10 people are in the house next door, four more people across the street. Because the boat can't take everyone, families are split up, and evacuated to different locations.
