posted on Nov, 19 2007 @ 06:59 PM
As a New Orleanian, when you mention the # of dead I think of one death in particular, although there were so many. Just over 1,800 and hundreds not
accounted for. Some do not want to be found, but I fear that number is very low.
There was a family stranded on their roof top, like so many others, and nightfall came. The family fell asleep and one of the babies rolled off the
roof in her sleep. She was a two or three years old. She fell in the water and her parent's couldn't swim. They did find her body, if that's any
consolation.
I know this to be a true story because one of my best friends was a nurse at a hospital located near the home and they could hear the screams of the
family begging for someone to help them. Additionally, there was an aritcle in the paper about this child's drowning.
In closing, I would like to ask that you not believe everything in the newspapers, because much of it is hearsay and rumor. Those at fault are all
three levels of government, Federal, State, and Local...every level, in that order; before, during, and after the storm.
If you didn't/don't live in New Orleans, you can never fully understand the magnitude of what happened here. The city of New Orleans itself,
pre-Katrina, was just under 500 million. People fail to realize that the entire metro area is 1.5 million. You only saw what the media wanted you to
see. Please remember that. I imagine that I'm rambling here, but I'm tired of trying to defend those elderly folks who couldn't leave and had no
transportation, I'm tired of defending those disabled and in wheelchairs and had no way out, I'm tired of defending the one million of us who did
evacuate, who didn't rob and/or look, and were kept from our homes and unemployed, living off our savings accounts for over a month, without knowing
the extent of the damage to our own homes and lives.
There are too many stories that continue to break my heart, even today, two years after the storm has passed. I guess part of the reason is because
even today, in many areas of the city, we continue to see a great deal of abandoned and damaged homes, with no hope or prospect of the owners ever
returning. However, things are getting somewhat better and that's a good thing. Folks here are working hard to rebuild this city and the place we
love and call home.