Don't Forget

The Gret Stet was hit by TWO major hurricanes this season--and the Bush administration's response has been abysmal on BOTH:

I wanted to write to you all on return from our relief efforts in Cameron Parish, Louisiana...

For those with the desire and wherewithal to do something, they desperately need volunteer labor. Short of that, money would be helpful but I would definitely avoid the Red Cross or FEMA. The best groups on the ground were local churches. We worked closely with the regional office of the Methodist church and two Methodist church communities. They have the best sense of need and are the most efficient with resources...

What we witnessed was a calamity that has been largely ignored. Certainly, the residents of southern Louisiana feel that way. The level of misery and disorientation is high.

I think we are under the impression that FEMA and other voluntary organizations are all over this and help is there or on the way. It isn't. Two months out, there is still wide spread destruction. FEMA is managing dumps and the Army Corps of Engineers is picking up debris if you can get it to the road, but many can not. We saw no sign of the Red Cross. Those who have the means to hire clean up are getting it done, those who can't are living in utter destruction. Social class is dictating the outcome. Many local churches and groups are doing what they can with very limited resources.

Some of the fields we cleared for poor farmers had debris that took 15 people to move. In two of the houses we cleaned up, we piled debris 10 feet high, fifteen feet wide, and over 200 feet long. Single widows with children lived there. We toured the area we originally thought we would be working in southern Cameron parish. There is nothing left to rebuild. It is completely destroyed. I know that your primary responsibility is to this college but your influence in letting people know of what is going on in these areas would be greatly appreciated. I think people are not aware of how bad it is in these places.

While this may sound pretty dire, and it is, let me convey a couple of lessons that I learned. First, it's often not the big things but the little things that made a difference. While moving big stuff was critically important, the two most profound images in my head were more delicate. I watched a group of students working with a women cleaning up what others may think of as junk and trinkets but that were the remains of 25 years of living in her house. Their sensitivity in dealing with her made me weep. On another occasion, Mary Mike Hailey and my group stopped to clean up garbage in a ditch outside of a neighborhood that had been hit pretty hard. People came out of their houses and wept. A women told me that on one level, she could take having a house leveled, but driving by your neighborhood day in and day out that is littered in trash was so demoralizing and overwhelming. Doing something as simple as picking up garbage out of a ditch had a profound moral affect.

First, a heartfelt thanks for anyone who comes to help out--it's profoundly appreciated.

But the generosity of individuals and groups is sadly counterweighted by the abject failure on the part of the government--which takes our resources, alters our landscapes to suit the national agenda...then can't be bothered to assist us in our hour of need.

Neither the generosity of individuals and groups nor the penury of the government will be forgotten.