More musings...

OK, I'm seriously in a musing mood...



Holy freck. I mean... wow. Even after all of the hurricanes last year-- Ivan and all the others-- I'm still blown away (pardon the pun) about Katrina. A category five hurricane, and it killed 100+ people in two states alone, not counting the tornadoes and storm surges it spawned. It's all over the news and the weather channel, especially about New Orleans. The levys broke, and now water's still rushing in and rising. People are looting grocery stores and banks just for the normal necessities of life, and some are still stranded on their rooftops, waiting for a coast guard to pick them up.

Hundreds are still in the superdome, still waiting for the water to rise, and even some of the prisoners in jail are placed on a bridge, where they can't escape or get killed by the water. It's really horrible, and extremely sad.

The part that made me cry was when they interviewed this man and his children, three survivors. The man was holding onto his wife's hand during a flood, but the children were slipping away while he did so, and the woman told him to let go so he could save their babies. And he did, and now his wife's gone. Washed away. These people, these survivors-- they have nothing. Their homes were destroyed, their possessions. All they have are the clothes on their backs and help from the Red Cross, the National Guard, and the people from up here.

This hurricane hit states that had been hit by hurricanes last year. And so it makes me really sad that people didn't evacuate, too. It was a mandatory evacuation for a category five hurricane, and still people stayed. And for the people that did evacate-- they're not coming back and crying at what they find. This one little girl's mom stayed behind, and she's dead now.

Apart from the sheer destruction, hurricane Katrina was purely awesome. Not 'cool' awesome, but... 'in awe' awesome. If you look at the footage of the wind and the rain, and then it all becoming calm and then starting up again... it just leaves you with your mouth hanging open. The whole country is feeling the aftereffects of this hurricane, and it's raining in Canada because of it, a hurricane that was way down in the gulf.

It's going to take a long time to build those cities and states back up again. It's going to have a huge effect on the economy, the ecology-- the water's so gross, and mosquitoes are everywhere... it's ninety-five degrees out there. Imagine what diseases could spread, what sicknesses this thing could cause. It's like the tsunami in Indonesia, except a lot closer to home. A little too close for comfort, as the tornadoes Katrina spawned (which killed people, too) were right next to where my parents live. I was so damn scared. You have no idea how this affects people until it affects you.

Well, there's my musing for the day; and I seriously hope everyone that reads this thinks about it like I did. And by thinking, I mean staying-up-at-night-wondering-what-will-happen thinking. -prods-