New Orleans

If you've been following Chris's blog, you know that his mom was stuck in New Orleans during this recent ordeal after the hurricane. Well, I'm happy to report that she arrived home safely last night, and we were all there to greet her (which in itself was something, since Chris and I, as well as his brother Sam, all live in Georgia now and just happened to be coming here for the weekend already). She added some details to the story we already knew that just amazed us all... and would be, I think, almost too much to recount.

Chris may add a bit more later, but what I want to make clear from all this is the fact that the National Guard did not help these people once they arrived in New Orleans. Chris's mom was in the Superdome (after escaping her hotel that had been looted) and there were shootings and stabbings there all the time. She feared for her life, and rightly so... people had to fight to protect her on a couple of occasions. When the National Guard did finally arrive, their purpose was to block people IN the Superdome, not to protect people... they saw shootings and stabbings happening, and did nothing to stop them. They pointed their guns at people when they felt they were in danger, but did nothing to protect those who were actually in danger.

Even once they made it on a bus (Friday, after being stuck there since Wednesday), no one was concerned with really helping them. Deborah tried to tell them, whenever she could, that she had a home to go to and if they would just let her off the bus, she could get to a hotel and get herself home, but they wouldn't let her. She was not really safe on the bus, either. So she literally had to escape the bus in Fort Worth in order to get to a hotel and get a flight booked for home.

I'm just amazed and disgusted with just how little was being done to actually help these people.... And the government and the news are spinning this to be a better situation than it really is, so I think it's important that we all know just how little is being done to help. And if you've seen news stations where it look terrible (because I have) I want you to know that it is actually worse than what you've seen. We are very blessed that Deborah made it out safely.