Laissez les bon temps rouler...

The Big Easy. RIP . . .

Out here in SF, we are somewhat isolated from the truth - from what is actually happening. We see the escalating gas prices and complain to our co-workers.

This is what is happening:

1. Looting. Not just grocery stores, clothing stores and other dry goods stores. Huge walmarts have been completely emptied. Gun stores cleaned out. There is already violence amongst those still in New Orleans, but now there are gangs armed with AK-47s. People mugging, raping and using violence to get what everyone else is after: food, water, dry clothes, shoes. This is true desperation.

2. Flooding. Not just homes, businesses. But football stadiums are filled with water. Dirty, disease-ridden, waste-contaminated water. Jails are flooded out, the inmates taken to one section of the flooded out I-10, and placed between the floodwaters on one side and guards on the other.

3. Southern Louisiana is bayou and swamp country. Poisonous snakes and crocodiles can now swim the streets. My cousin, working for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries, has been sent to New Orleans with his boat to help round up these animals.

4. The weather: New Orleans at any time of year is humid 90-100%, and especially right now, HOT. There is no clean drinking water, no power, no shelter, to escape the heat and humidity.

5. Poverty rate. About 30% of New Orleans' population were leaving at or below poverty level. People who had verylittle or nothing to begin with, now have even less.

6. No mobility, no exit. People are trapped, many of them sick (diabetic, heart problems) and most dehydrated and without food. It's terribly hard to organize and physically difficult to navigate the flooded streets to actually reach the people that need to be rescued. There is a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans, but people don't know HOW to get out! It's impossible. They are DESPERATE to get out, but there is NO where to go and no means.

I could go on and on. People stranded, the losing battle of the police against the crime, the death toll, as yet to even be considered - there is just too much else to do. I do not mean for this to be a doomsday message. But this is the reality at this moment on the Gulf Coast.

I had some family members evacuate New Orleans before the storm hit. They are safe, and - PRAISE GOD - there is family in East Texas and Northern Louisiana to take care of them. But, they don't know if they'll ever get a chance to go home, or if that home even exists anymore.

Pray, people. Click here to help.