I’ve teamed up with Judi Murphy and Dave Rumley to help blog their two different disaster relief trips. They will be posting voice messages at our new Disaster Relief Audio Blog. Hopefully they’ll also get to interview a few people and occasionally borrow a camera phone to send pictures.

I’m still working on the web site. But you can already read about one of the teams and see the photo they just emailed me.

The address is gentlewhisper.com/relief. Podcast coming soon!

Three year old Sarah opened a birthday card from Grandma. Dollars! She was excited to find two five dollar bills. Ten bucks is a lot of money for this little girl. I told her she can spend the money on anything she wants. I offered five ideas:
1. Buy a toy.
2. Buy a pretty dress.
3. Buy some food.
4. Go to a restaurant. [Her excitement grew with each new suggestion.]
5. Help the people who were hurt in the storm.

No contest.

Sarah immediately wanted to give the money to people who were “hurt in the storm” so that they could “build a brick house and get something to drink.” I suggested that she could give some of the money and keep some for herself. She quickly rejected that idea. She wanted to give it all away.

What Sarah really wanted to do was put her dollars in the big Red Cross bottle at the ball park. Of course they aren’t there anymore, but she was still very excited to put her donation in the Compassion Alliance bottle at The Lazy Susan.

Sarah is still worried. She wonders what the people will “scrubble their hair with?” She thinks we should go buy them some shampoo. I’m sure she’d love to fill a disaster bucket.

Today at the grocery store, Sarah wanted to give another dollar. They have Red Cross coupons at the check out. You just pull off the amount you want to donate and have the checker ring it up. Sarah got terribly upset when the checker took her dollar. Heartbroken, she cried, “I wanted to give that money to the people. {Sob} The people hurt in the storm!” It took a long time to convince her that she had.

Google has “launched two new search features designed specifically for finding information about the hurricane’s aftermath more quickly.” [Via-Google Blog]

Note: I received an interesting comment to this post. Perhaps it was because I quoted only the first paragraph of the article. This may have led to some confusion. I’ve changed the quote. Read the whole article before you make a judgement. Then tell us why you agree or disagree…

“While powerless politicians thundered, the public took action. Families packed up goods and shipped them to the Gulf Coast. Houses of worship organized fund-raisers. Truckers suspended normal business and headed to the region, offering to transport goods or people. Individual charitable donations exceeded $500 million in the week after the hurricane ripped into Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi.” - Tony Snow: The Over-Responders

I found this article interesting… These definitions might come in handy:

ca·dre (kädr, -dr, kdr)
2. A tightly knit group of zealots who are active in advancing the interests of a revolutionary party.

pan·jan·drum (pn-jndrm)
An important or self-important person

in·vei·gle (n-vgl, -v-)
1. To win over by coaxing, flattery, or artful talk. See Synonyms at lure.
2. To obtain by cajoler

trope (trp)
1. A figure of speech using words in nonliteral ways, such as a metaphor.
2. A word or phrase interpolated as an embellishment in the sung parts of certain medieval liturgies

Bill Whittle published a long, thought provoking, r-rated language post on his blog Eject! Eject! Eject! yesterday. Don’t let the length or the bad language stop you. He makes some good points.

Update: Blog Rodent links to the post and adds all the nice theological commentary that I would have written had I been awake. Thanks!

At 2:30 on Sunday morning, as he rolled over and went to sleep, my husband mentioned an email he had received the day before. The email told how many body bags New Orleans had and how many more they had ordered.  The numbers shocked me.  I couldn’t sleep.  I logged into his Gmail account and read the forwarded message.  What I read kept me up half the night. I decided to post it here. The email tells a story I have not heard on the net or mainstream media. It is terrible.  More terrible than I have seen suggested anywhere. It’s a lengthy letter.  So I’ve decided to pick out a few quotes.  [I've corrected the spelling.]

"I know they are saying on the news that no official body count has been done and that no bodies have been seen in the city. THIS IS A LIE!!!!!. They do not want to put that out yet."

"I just cannot describe to you or anyone just how bad things really are. We have a major US city, that does not exist anymore. They have 50,000 body bags down there now. Another 50,000 has been ordered. I just don’t know what to say. The news is trying to focus more on the other hard hit areas because the governor has asked that limited reports be issued to the rest of the country for now until they can get a handle on things and believe it or not, it seems the media is doing that." [Bold added by me.]

The entire email is included below.

This email was sent from a police officer in New Orleans to his family, who forwarded it to a retired FBI agent, who sent it to my husband on September 2nd.  I have removed the names and corrected spelling.

Update: Another blog has published this email and attributes it to someone else.

Warning: It will hurt to read this.

Subject: From a Police Officer in New Orleans to his family

"Wanted to let ya’ll know that we got our power back around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. We still do not have cable or internet so we only see what is on the local news and that’s very fuzzy. I can tell you that you and [name removed] both need to hug and kiss the kids the next time you see them and understand that we are all so very lucky. This with out a doubt will surpass anything this country has EVERY seen in it’s history !!!! We had a meeting yesterday with OEP (Office of Emergency Preparedness) and every single manager and administrative person in the room was crying. They told us that the city of New Orleans has effectively ceased to exist. They are having to evacuate everyone starting this morning from all shelters and hospitals where they can. The ones they can’t get to may not make it. Close to 30 buildings in the downtown and surrounding areas has collapsed. The French Quarter is no more. River Walk and the aquarium does not exist. Most of the factories, refineries are 90-100% destroyed. All state wide infrastructure and services based in the city are destroyed. We do not have phones here at the hospital. We have right now close to 350,000 people from the city, here in Baton Rouge. They are pleading with people to help. We only have a few places to get gas. The grocery stores are bare. Wal Mart said they are down to less than 20% of normal stock in all stores in the state. They said they expect Baton Rouge to grow 10 times it’s current size in the next 5 years because people now are trying purchase any home or shelter they can find here to move. People do not realize that do not live here, that this will effect the entire country. New Orleans is one of three ports in the US where imported goods and services comes in the country. There are 1.5 million people in the state with no jobs and no way to support their families now. Most of all the companies based in New Orleans are here looking to move the business to BR just to keep their name going and have something to start with when they can. It is just so incredible. It seems like we are playing the part of some sick movie about a natural disaster that seems to unreal to ever happen. Well, I am seeing from the inside and it’s not pretty. We cannot get supplies for the hospital, not even food. OEP calls ever hour to check bed counts. We are adding makeshift rooms to take patients from New Orleans starting today. It is so heartbreaking, I just want to cry. My nerves are are being pushed to the limit as well as every one here. I know they are saying on the news that no official body count has been done and that no bodies have been seen in the city. THIS IS A LIE!!!!!. They do not want to put that out yet. [Name removed], our Plant Ops Supervisor, his son is down there doing rescues. He sent [name removed] a picture, that I saw, of them floating in the water. He went to put in a boat and when he cranked the motor, they hit something under water and five bodies floated up under the boat. They had a place where they take care of people who are bed ridden, not much more than a vegetable, they were told to evacuate and put toe tags on the patients so they could identify the bodies. They could not get the patients out. There was a nursing home with over 200 residents that had been evacuated to one of the hotels on the fourth floor. When the levee broke, it started to fill up with water and they had to leave them. They all drowned. We are getting reports like this all day long from people who are there and seeing it first hand. Martial Law has been declared despite what is on TV. This all sounds so unreal, but damn, it is real. I just never thought I would ever see anything like this in my lifetime. It really humbles you and makes you feel fortunate to have what you have. People say they have it bad down there and everything will be ok, well, people just have no way of understanding what is going on and cannot grasp the situation. I-10 east out of New Orleans, both spans has collapsed. The causeway bride going across the lake from Slidell to New Orleans has chunks of bridge that has collapsed in both directions. There is only one road that is open into the city. The one we went down when ya’ll were here. Both airports are under water and it is rising a foot an hour right now. One levee has a 200 ft break in it and the other has a 200 ft break and a 300ft break in it. There is no way at this point to stop the water coming in. They have all kinds of people down there trying different things and cannot get it stopped. I just cannot describe to you or anyone just how bad things really are. We have a major US city, that does not exist anymore. They have 50,000 body bags down there now. Another 50,000 has been ordered. I just don’t know what to say. The news is trying to focus more on the other hard hit areas because the governor has asked that limited reports be issued to the rest of the country for now until they can get a handle on things and believe it or not, it seems the media is doing that. Biloxi and Gulfport got hit really hard but they can rebuild. I just don’t see how they can in New Orleans. There will easily be more deaths than there has been in any single event this country has ever seen. I’m sorry to say all this cause I know how much you worry but I needed to say it for myself also. Don’t worry about us. We will be fine and we are fine. I just feel so damn sorry for those people that lost everything. Not just their belongings, but their way of live is gone. They will be starting over from scratch basically their entire life. It’s just so sad. I bitch when [name removed] and I argue or when something does not go how I think it should, well not anymore. I looked at me kids and [name removed] last night and I had to go outside and cry. Anyway, PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT WORRY. WE WILL BE OK. It’s another one of life’s challenges and we will make it. I just had to get this all of my chest. Anyway, I need to get back to work. I will talk to ya’ll later.

We love ya’ll and miss ya’ll "

[name removed] 

CNN.com - World leaders offer sympathy, aid

CNN.com- Radio interview with New Orleans’ Mayor - Sep 2, 2005
Listen to the audio, but keep your hands over you kids’ ears…

Update: It looks like this post is getting a lot of traffic from MSNBC. If you’d like to read some real posts about the hurricane, visit this category.