“Our Tsunami”

When I heard that phrase early this week, I scoffed. Katrina was a terrible hurricane, but to compare her to the Asian tsunami, I thought, was going a little overboard at best.

Now, with friends losing their own friends and loved ones, and with reports of hundreds, maybe thousands dead, I realize that maybe this was, in fact, our tsunami.

The latest reports indicate that about 60 thousand people are trying to evacuate New Orleans, alone. Gun fire toward helicopters halted the rescue efforts that were to begin today to relocate some 25 thousand evacuees from the Superdome and other shelters to the Astrodome. Some of the 400+ buses that were to be used in the evacuation were even carjacked.

A New Orleans hospital cannot evacuate now because of sniper fire, and Mayor Ray Nagin speculates that thousands, more likely than hundreds, of people have died.

Gangs have set up their turf everywhere.

It is pure chaos.

I could wax political or philosophical on this, but I won’t. The past week has brought with it a great deal of change and a great deal of tragedy. All I can do is pray to what ever deity there might be.

I spoke with a woman from the BBC today. She was working on a report for BBC radio, and she asked, “is it true that the United States federal government took funding away from New Orleans and similar regions, and used it to fund the war in Iraq?” This funding, she said, was to go to maintaining the New Orleans levees and similar structure.

While this is a worthy report, I told her we were too far north to have reported on something like this. Too far north, yet anything but far-removed.

Oxford is a small town. The university paper covers more news than the city paper often does. Even then, much of the news is regional.

That said, when I was reporting, I wanted my news stories to have national ties in some way. Once, as a freshman or sophomore, I did a great deal of research on STDs and reported for the paper not just speculation on infection at the university, or facts and figures about the state. I covered campuses from all over the country. Unfortunately, that piece faced the heavy weight of the editor’s axe.

I wish we had covered this story–if, in fact, it really is one.

Times like these make me want to get out from behind the assignment desk and go out and report, something I was trained to do and do to the best of my ability.

As it stands now, thousands of people seem to have lost everything. Whether rich or poor, they have nothing. Some of my friends and others I know have taken it upon themselves to go back home to the coast, to find their families and other loved ones and to salvage what little might remain of their material possessions.

I mention this not just as a fan, but to illustrate a point–Fats Domino is now missing.

Domino, 78, is one of New Orleans’ biggest legends. His being missing shows that the city has not simply lost its physical structure, but also a part of its soul.

May your loved ones all be safe.