Five weeks have gone by since Hurricane Katrina struck.

Let’s step away from the tech for a moment to remember the victims of Hurricane Katrina, who are far and away still not back where they belong.

The following is about real people doing real good for others just because they really want to help. This is what America is about and I’m honored to know people like Lestat.

Lestat my friend from Wisconsin who blogs over at BeginnerCode just got back from taking a truckload of supplies down to New Orleans. He took a week’s vacation time to go down there and caught the tail end of Hurricane Rita. Here are his comments from our open IRC conversation this morning:

^Lestat: we began to gautier.
^Lestat: but got re-routed to lake charles as the disaster struck.
^Lestat: we took an easterly route to avoid any remnant of Rita - but that was prroly times, and we drove through the tornados anyhow
^Lestat: that was exciting in an RV(tornado magnet)
^Lestat: in the end it ended up being a 40hr drive
^Lestat: we had enough food & water/med supplies for us the crew for the week.
^Lestat: didnt know what we were going in to
TD: wow, with gas prices soaring … like $4/gallon in some areas
^Lestat: a food service joined with nightrunners.net
^Lestat: with convoy of hope
^Lestat: they fed us break/lunch/and dinner
^Lestat: we also had plenty of ice/water/gatorade…man it was hot
^Lestat: lots of our people had heat exhaustion
^Lestat: the supplies for the line came from donations around the world to the convoy of hope
^Lestat: who sets up distibution points to truck in
^Lestat: the ice and food kept comming
^Lestat: we DID have trouble getting gas to get out of town.
^Lestat people were driving around with generators in their pickup selling them at 200%mu
^Lestat: one lady donate all 3 of hers to us, and went around the next day filling gas cans, and donated them too
^Lestat: the amount of charity is staggering
^Lestat: i would say only 1% of people asking for the charity were the abusers
^Lestat: NASCAR car #32 is now a sponsor - they donated 1.5 mil to our cause
^Lestat: WE were the ice water point for the police sherrifs/ national guard for many days
^Lestat: in return, the guard donated some soliders/time to help us in handing out aid…then we could break
^Lestat 1 of the soldiers was a disgrace, but I included him in the 1% of jerks out there
^Lestat: but the police were working 24 hours etc and hadnt gotten home
^Lestat: heard 1 story of a policeman who went home and found his family/ children dead…he shot himself
^Lestat: we were in the lobby of “hobby lobby” craft store, and little plaza with other stores…
^Lestat: the mgr, ended up helping us out too
^Lestat: he was trying to fix up his place that was flooded etc…
^Lestat: he had the only bathroom we could use …no portopottys
^Lestat: though we had to use a flashlight, and dump water in the toilet to make it go
^Lestat: no modestya nymore when you are grunting away, and who knows who is holding a flashlight for you outside the stall
^Lestat: but it was a necessity
^Lestat: the owner of the plaza wanted us to move our operation so alstate ins could move in to help victims. the ownere didnt really know what our operation was about…
^Lestat: BUT
^Lestat: the police said they would NOT assist us in moving - because they wanted us to stay
^Lestat: we were their support
^Lestat: Ive never been greeted by a policemen so nicly before walking up to his car.
^Lestat: usually they get kinda shifty when you do that

I took the sequence of the actual comments out of order so that the trip could be put in chronological order. The above comments were actually Lestat’s last comments, without any editing. These were his first comments:

^Lestat this is my tummy holding the case of water http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=121111
^Lestat: it was truly heart wrenching
^Lestat: both the photographer and reporter ended up helping us hand out aid. they were touched
^Lestat: it was a warzone
^Lestat: lots to tell…
^Lestat: military / helicopters flying everywhere
^Lestat: soldeiers everywhere - curfew on - humvees all over
^Lestat: and didnt see PEEP of FEMA until Friday
^Lestat: FEMA gets paid by us the citizens. Convoy of Hope is all donations.
^Lestat: I have pics, but no time to blog yet…

The lack of FEMA being visible is a criticism heard in the early days of Katrina, but haven’t heard as much recently.

TD: where was FEMA, you think?
^Lestat: FEMA was busy planning on planning how to plan how to help people
^Lestat: its hard when you meet people that all they own is in the trunk of their car
^Lestat: then again - they WERE told to get out
^Lestat it was 106 with the heat index there
^Lestat: lots of people had heat exhaustion
^Lestat: hard to see children in cars. The kids looked like they were swimming - but it was sweat.
^Lestat: to be honest, I cried a lot.
TD: I’m proud of you, Lestat. It is generous, caring Americans like you that really make this country what it is today.
^Lestat thank man
TD: I’d like to put this in the current event section at Hmm, CNN is talking about people going back to school and the city being almost dry
^Lestat: i need to get me new scanner hooked up to blog.
^Lestat: i journaled each day.
^Lestat: on paper
TD: I’m still wondering about that area though and think that it still needs much, much work and the news coverage of that will be less than the news of the initial tragedy and water
^Lestat: you got that right
TD: If that’s true, then that’s a tragedy in itself
^Lestat: its truly incredible. Pictures and tv doesnt do it justice
TD: I would encourage you to blog it and keep the story going
^Lestat: in the lake charles area (where i was) it will take at least 2 years
^Lestat: it’s very sad.
TD: bloggers can keep the news strong where mainstream media, drops it for other stories
^Lestat: it was even more surreal comming home to our weath
^Lestat: it was surreal, leaving the chaos into our piggish wealth(so it seemed)
^Lestat: it was just as surreal returning home - as it was entering the week of chaos
TD: Yeah, just UNlike our brave men and women fighting over in Iraq, we have it selfishly good right now
^Lestat: but it was SOoooooo nice to go to the bathroom without a flashlight AND have a shower WITH hot water.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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