Status It is now 12 days after Katrina-no more long lines to wait in for gasoline, no more noisy generators going all day and all night, our house is air conditioned, we are so lucky, compared to so many. The only supermarket in Hancock County that is open is in Diamondhead, it’s almost fully stocked. We have a bunch of them all around us during normal times, now only this one to serve an entire county of some 30,000 people. Only its not 30,000 people as I would say at least 20,000 are either still out of state or are in evacuation centers where they are being fed by volunteer organizations or are eating MREs. My daughter drove down from Minneapolis, MN and arrived last night with some Japanese food supplies and medicine that we both need but are unable to get as the Pharmacies plus our Insurance Drug supplier uses only the US Mail and they are not yet up to speed. Should be up and running in a few more days. What am I doing all day long? Cutting limbs off trees and stacking them by the side of the road around our house. We live on a corner so I have a pile of tree limbs that is over 100 feet long, six feet high by about 8 feet wide. I’m waiting to hear if the chain saw that I ordered will be in today or not. FEMA will be by within the week. As I write this letter, Masumi and my daughter are now in Biloxi, getting food vouchers from the Red Cross. My US Satellite TV is scheduled to be fixed on the 10th of October, and telephone service is scheduled to be restored on the 21st of November. We got a new cell phone provider the other day, got rid of Cingular/Bell South-(terrible service) and have signed up for Cellular South instead. Hopefully, we will be back on line shortly thereafter. My little summary barely gives justice to all that I have observed. The selflessness of so many people who gave aid out of the goodness of their hearts, versus the stupidity of those who we pay handsomely to do things correctly, is striking. ART 09/16/05 P.S. (My daughter made me put this in): I have promised and learned from this experience that if there is ever another hurricane warning to this area of a category 3 or stronger, that I will evacuate. (We have not yet convinced Mitzie of this new standard, but hopefully she will come along as well!) To read AK's entire Katrina account, without photos, click The whole story without photos here, or in the frame on the left. |