Saturday, September 03, 2005

Another one of Fred's Katrina Adventures

Powerless. That's how I felt for a few minutes Friday. It's not powerless like being without electricity or batteries. I mean powerless like there's nothing you can do to change the situation.

There's only been two situations in my life when I felt that way--when my little cousin died in a car wreck when I was in 7th grade and when my father died when I was 15. That third moment came while I was covering volunteers in Independence, La. (hometown of Jacksonville Jaguars RB LaBrandon Toefield) distributing ice, water and meals-ready-to-eat to locals without power and water.

I was talking to the school superintendent in Tangipahoa Parish (a Southern alum), who was helping with the effort. One of the volunteers asked me if I knew phone numbers to the local radio stations. Apparently, some displaced people from New Orleans were trying to get the word out that they were looking for relatives that they haven't heard from since Hurricane Katrina came through Monday.
I didn't know the radio station numbers, but quickly gave phone numbers to my newspaper's makeshift office - which had numbers to all agencies and media outlets on hand. One of the family members, a female that looked to be in my age range, was visibly shaken and had tears in her eyes as she talked to me.

All I could do is hand her those numbers to our office and get her on the path to getting the word out. It took every ounce of me not to weep with her and her family. People that know me well know that I'm not the most sympathetic person in the world, but the pain and sadness in that woman's voice, and the desperation in the body language of her family, spoke volumes. For the third time in my soon-to-be 27 years on this planet, I truly felt powerless. Powerless to change an outcome, a situation, a scenario, yaddah yaddah...

Degrees of separation between me and the chaos have all but been eliminated, as this storm has affected family, friends and perfect strangers that I've come across in recent days. One of my best friends from college is still unheard from as the storm also messed up a good chunk of the 'Sip (get at us, mane!) while another just got his Internet service restored. My friend from Slidell (also hometown to Chicago Bulls guard/former Dookie Chris Duhon) is still unheard from.

Coming Soon...How something as mundane as getting gas has turned into episodes of the Crocodile Hunter and my much delayed SWAC football preview!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Freddy, Its your number one fan! Yep you guessed it Maia. Well you know i should have a blogg page too, with all the crap ive been through these past few days. Ill be glad to give an interview when or if i ever get out of here.

To everyone out there who seems to believe NOPD is the only agency out here that are heros please believe that the smaller agencies out here are getting their fair share of looters and BS...Ive been on the clock for 13 days and othsers here have been on longer. Most of us dont have homes to go back too and are living at the station, but how long can that last.
Please keep us in your prayers as well as all the outside agencies who have come down here to help us.