Live from New Orleans...with a bit of time delay

Text message #1 at 4:17 CST: It's damn messed up
My reply: What's up?
Text message #2 at 4:17 CST: Pray
My reply: You? Or all of New Orleans?
Text message #3 at 4:24 CST: Fucked up
My reply: I can only imagine
Text message #4 at 4:26 CST: Horrible. So sad.

And then the phone call from 20 miles east of Lafayette, LA:
He's on the way to Houston. Four patients in their truck, the other three trucks are loaded much the same way. They were supposed to only load nine patients from step down hospitals. Five criticals and four non. By the end of it all, they had 15 evacuated. A Marine stopped them two minutes from the time they were to leave and asked them to please follow him to a hospital that had been evacuated two days ago. He'd found a man alive in there that had been left for dead. The Marine had made rounds through the hospital yesterday and thought the man was dead. Today, he realized he was alive. DH and four other medics and two Marines got him out, made a walk through of the entire hospital and found 15 others...who they believe had been left for dead as well. And they had passed on. As they finished loading all of their patients, a NO cop came up to them and told them to get the hell out. The looters near the convention center had noticed the trucks and were on their way to the hospital, which was only a few blocks away. Needless to say, they loaded and took off. DH did say that they couldn't and wouldn't leave anyone they found alive, even if they are overloaded with patients. They also have four nurses with them from the hospital, who have been working since Sunday night. DH has four in the back of his truck, and one riding up front with him.

They had been escorted in, and out, by a helicopter with two shooters hanging out over their truck and two Marines per truck. They left town with two Department of Defense people who are riding all the way to Houston with them. They DoD guys have to get to Galveston to re-load with supplies and head back. DH and the others from the company will be heading back here after they take their patients to Houston hospitals.

DH said mentally and physically, he cannot go back for a day or two. It's just too horrid. He took some pictures with his camera phone....I can only imagine what he must have seen and heard and felt.

...........................................................

I thought 9/11 changed the US forever. Hurricane Katrina will do more to the US than the terrorists ever thought about doing. There are 8 families that arrived in our town today to stay at a local motel. One of the men has already secured a job at Wal-Mart. All 8 families are saying they will not go back to New Orleans. They've lived their entire lives there, and cannot bear to return. The memories, the pain, the heart ache, and the destruction are too much for them to handle. I know they are only a few of thousands upon thousands of evacuees. But how many of them feel this way? How many have seen their life long homes for the last time? How many cannot bear to return? And will their lives (and ours) ever be the same again? Somehow, I think this is even more tragic. More devastating.