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The only time I've ever used this place to express any kind of personal story was during the aftermath of Katrina. I live in Louisiana and did some volunteer work with the displaced people shortly after the hurricane. The level of desperation of these people was enough to keep me awake at night. It is impossible to describe the level of fear and desperation people felt for those first few weeks.
None of that has subsided substantially. Some areas have opened and people have returned, but the fear here is that the government will not do its job to protect the people here from the same thing happening again. It casts an even darker pall on the already dark task of destroying ravaged homes, closing businesses and struggling to get southeast Louisiana back on its feet. People try to have as much holiday cheer as they can, but you can see the despair, the worry, written into the faces of the people. It sits in every word of every newspaper story about aid or why the disaster has become a back-burner issue a mere three months after it happened.
My plea to you in this holiday season is for all of you to not forget what happened to the people in the gulf this fall. For the most part, those who suffered were the poor, the elderly, the people who have no voice and who have no one to speak for their interests. The same government that does little to help them out of poverty and misery looks in many ways to do little to repair their shattered lives. The only way any real good can be done here is if ordinary Americans give what they can and pressure their elected representatives into doing something substantive for the region. The region has little influence over those in power unless people elsewhere make their voices heard and tell others it is unacceptable to do nothing.
Happy holidays.
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