So I noticed that about 99% of the people I see in the sad, sad photos from New Orleans are black, elderly, disabled or all of the above. Then I heard on the news that the problem…and I guess I hadn’t thought of this before…is that when evacuation orders are given, there is a part of the population that simply can’t evacuate. They are poor, they don’t have cars, they have nowhere to go, or they aren’t physically capable of evacuating.
That explains things.
Whenever I’ve heard of people sticking around when everybody else is evacuating, I’ve always thought "what the heck is wrong with these people?! It’s time to go…why are you still here?" But now I realize that leaving is not always possible. It’s very sad to me. I saw a photo of a man with one leg laying on top of a building’s roof. I read an article about a woman whose husband had advanced lung cancer and couldn’t be moved. His wife went to get help but he ran out of oxygen and died before she could make it back. Then she was stuck trying to deal with his body because the crews are more focused on search and rescue, and now the focus has been turned to stopping the looting.
It’s times like this that I honestly wish I could just take a week off work and go to New Orleans to help. I know that I can give a monetary donation, but sometimes I just want to go hold these people’s hands and hug them and give them some love. You know?
Don’t you ever feel that way?
by sabrina
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