Hey everyone,
Its been a while since I have been here but if any of ya'll have been wacthing the news last month and this month Hurricane Katrina and probably soon her bitch cousin Rita has destroyed the entire Gulf Coast. New Orleans went under with about 10 ft of water and the surrounding areas had that and then some, I left the sunday before it hit and all I can it was the worst vacation ever. On the road for two days through parts of Mississippi, across Louisiana to Texas and back to Louisiana with your parents, two brothers, uncle and grand parents was annoying none the less. We finally found a place in Alexandria and stayed there for a week before we could go back home. We got that a tree fell on the house and pancaked a shed and broke the roof over my parents room, but the house was livable with power and water just got cable to go on the internet yesterday and thought I would post to let ya'll know I am alive. I really sucks that this happened, I never thought that a Hurricane would almost level New Orleans in my life time and nothing will never be the same for a long time.
Damon
Oh and BTW, the T-Bird is safe I brought it on the evacuation trip.
glad to hear that your ok and also the bird. anything we can do to help?
Glad to hear that everyones ok. Even the bird.
I'm fine, as long as I have water and the MRE's we have been geting i'll be strait.
That not much I can say for others though, Most of my freinds got about 3-4 ft of water in there houses and have to rip out the walls to get the stench out. One of them had there house submerged in water from the storm surge. He lost everything and can't even go into his neighborhood because of all of the distruction, his insurance adjuster can't even get there to inspect the damage so he can write him a check.
My parents live in Sarasota and they were untouched.
Let us know if we can do anything to help.
Dave
Heh.. I wasn't gonna say it, but yeah.. when I see people talking about the "entire Gulf coast", I think stuff like: "what are we, chopped liver?" (Sarasota is about 40-45 miles north of me)
Hate to say it.. and maybe it's because I'm a little too fascinated with tropical weather.. but even I've known for a long time now that N'awlins was screwed if a storm like that ever hit. When Charley hit us last year, we got some flooding and a hell of a lot of wind.. but it was nothing like Katrina even though the winds we got were slightly stronger. I think, if anything, Charley blew most of the water OUT of Charlotte Harbor. Had it come in from a different angle, it might have been a different story.. but still not as bad as N'awlins. It's bowl-shaped and below sea level.
At the beginning of hurricane season, I said to my fiance that after all the stormshiznit Florida last year, places like New Orleans were probably up next. I'm not glad to have been right, in this case.
By the way, to anyone that wants to help hurricane victims anywhere along the Gulf coast from Texas to Florida, my recommendation is to seek out a reputable charity that ISN'T the Red Cross, and donate to that organization. I say that because, while the efforts of the individual Red Cross volunteer on-scene are to be applauded, their higher-ups seem to be motivated more by money than by altruism. The CEO of the Red Cross makes around $450,000 a year out of that donation money.. compare that to the CEO of the Salvation Army, who makes $13,000 a year plus travel expenses. Just an example.
Also, the Red Cross has started to develop a policy (and by started, I mean this goes back to the Frisco earthquake in '89) of not giving out more than about 20% of what they take in. In the old days, they established a policy of giving out as much of what they got in as they could, and doing that on a disaster-by-disaster basis. Now they're getting away from their own policy. I don't like the religiousness of the Salvation Army, personally.. but organizations like that are much more effective at giving out what they take in. Seems like only about 20% of what the Red Cross gets in goes out to where it is needed.
Something else to consider is that when a disaster hits and everyone whips out the checkbooks to help, most of the help goes to the Red Cross while other charities suffer. If you want to help a charity local to an affected area of the Gulf coast, I suggest a charity listing like this place:
http://www.charity-charities.org/
They should be able to help you find a worthy alternative.
Here's an opinion piece from a few years back that seems to do a better job of this than I could:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001506
And this site, while apparently not the best reading on other subjects, seems to do a good job of explaining it as well:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2005/010905redcross.htm
At any rate.. any donations you provide to a reputable charity are needed for areas affected by these storms. Things really do get as bad as they seem on TV. The local water system gets polluted, the power goes out for days or weeks or even months. You have to drive to unaffected areas just to get gas.. in our case that was at least 20 miles north to Venice, but stations there often ran empty because of the increased load from people like us. And with our generator eating something like 10 gallons a day just to keep the fridge and some fans and a couple lights running, needless to say it was almost a daily trip to make. All that and we were the luckiest people in the county to have had no real damage. So you can imagine it gets much worse for people who weren't so lucky. I think the motel I work for still has people living in it that haven't had their homes repaired from last year. Now I hear estimates that Mississippi, for example, may need 5 years to recover from this. There are people there that are going to be needing help for a loooong time. The point is: Don't think your donations aren't needed. (and they are appreciated by the people who are helped by them, I'm sure)
EDIT: This was meant for anyone who wanted to help in the general sense. Obviously if you also want to help fastbird86 individually, none of this post really applies. Heh.. I'm so not used to this getting up for work thing.. a little more mentally disjointed than usual, this morning. :p
Yeah, I didn't give to the red cross for that reason.
Back on the subject at hand, I'm glad you made it through okay and you managed to save the bird to boot.
Yeah we were all wondering about you a couple weeks ago man. I'm glad to hear that you are okay and still have a house to live in.