New Orleans folks mark time not by the hour and minutes, or even a.m. and p.m., but rather by "before the storm" and "after the storm." The cashier ringing up my order at an artists gallery in the French Quarter noted: "This jewelry designer is going to be so excited she sold these. She just brought them in this morning. She'd taken these items home after the storm and polished them up." The cashier at Mother's, a popular New Orleans eatery, said: "Everyone here has been working 12 hours a day since the storm. Our regular people didn't return after the storm. They don't have anywhere to live." The museum director at Jackson Barracks, smack dab between the 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish, explained: "These uniforms sat in water for four weeks after the storm."

Uniforms weren't the only thing soaking in water at Jackson Barracks. After the hot breath of hell, commonly referred to as Katrina, blew over the land, and three of the city's main levees crumbled, a 100 transport vehicles sat idle. Flooded. Communication systems failed. Flooded. A 40 foot refrigerated trailer from a nearby sausage factory floated over the chainlink fence and landed in front of the barrack's gates, where it remained for the next month, meat spoiling in the September heat. "I'll never get that smell  outta my head," said Casey Levy,a National Guard spokesman. Even now, four months later, only one of the dozens of buildings on site has electricity. 

Forget all the images you've seen on television, in the newspapers, online. There isn't a one of them that truly captures the devastation. Instead walk out your front door and look around. Now imagine for as far as you can see every house, every warehouse, every street light, every car, truck or SUV, or boat demolished. Imagine the bombing of Berlin come to your hometown. Imagine Hiroshima. Imagine the end of the world. Then, and only then, can you really begin to understand what folks driving into Jackson Barracks see ever single day. 

The silence says it all. There's no dogs barking. No motors humming. No kids laughing. No horns blaring. No water running. No music of any sort. Graveyards aren't even that quiet. 

Sidewalks are strewn with remmants of people's lives. Blue jeans and baby toys hang in trees. Abandoned cars litter the city. A three-foot statue of Jesus sits in yard where a house once stood. His arms open wide. His head gone.

That more than any other visual sums up what I witnessed. New Orleans is a city with open arms, ready to embrace people, but lacking the essential know-how to rebuild. And where is President Bush on all this? Standing in the French Quarter, the least damaged area of all, claiming all is well in New Orleans.

Here's what I think. Bush & his administration ought to worry less about the potential threat of evildoers and do more about the real threat that was Katrina. How is it we have the know how to tell Iraqis how they ought to fix their country, when we can't even fix our own? The people of the Gulf Region are Americans. We owe them better than this.

And before you go protesting that the people of the Gulf Coast deserve this because God is mad with them, or because they built a city in a bowl, or whatever rationale you use to dismiss the pain of others, know this: The next disaster could be in your neighborhood. God forbid.    

I totally agree, Karen! After going through so many hurricanes, although not as destructive as Katrina, you feel so isolated and forgotten. Isn't that what the government is supposed to be about- helping people, its own citizens, to feel safe and secure in their own land? Apparently not here in the US...