Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Sportswriter views Katrina damage...and is outraged
You can tell the Katrina damage is still huge and making an impact when a sportswriter and his wife take a trip through it and he uses his sports column to write about it! Peter King of Sports Illustrated wrote a scathing article on what he saw when he went to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans and boy....is he upset. We all should be upset about the 'truthiness' of the failure of our local, state, and federal officials lack of response to the devastation. The state of Maine had a 'Katrina' back in January of 1998 too. We had a devastating ice storm that knocked out power to much of the whole state (there are 1.3 million people in our state and 1 million were without power). And? It got very little news coverage. I remember listening to the radio to see if the national news was talking about it and never heard anything. My son and I were some of the lucky ones because we only went without power for seven days, but my folks and many others in the state went without power for two weeks or more and anyone living on an island....went at least a month without it! Ice is damaging. Large trees fell easily across roads and down onto homes smashing everything in it's path. Branches (some as large as garages) would just fall to the ground without much effort. I remember standing outside and listening to the sounds of branches and trees cracking not knowing if one would hit me. It was a devastating eerie sound. Walking? You couldn't walk on the ground to even get your mail. Each piece of grass had a 1/2 inch thick layer on it and the lawns were bumpy, hard, and slippery, which made it almost impossible to take just a few steps. The ice storm of 1998 brought Mainers together though. Neighbors banded together to take in people who didn't have wood stoves to heat their homes. We fed each other by cooking on our outdoor gas grills. We tried to make the best of it while we all suffered from being cold, bored, and having to ladel our toilets out because we had not water. The one thing that will always stick in my mind was Central Maine Power. No one in the state loves the electric company. We don't like their prices and their monopoly on us, but during the Ice Storm, we loved CMP. Why? Because the employees were also suffering the same as us back at their homes. They knew how we were all feeling. As CMP made their way slowly through the state they were met with open arms! People came out of their houses and gave the workers food, coffee, and anything they needed or wanted because they were our saviors!!!! They were here for us and Mainers felt it. Another hero of the Ice Storm of '98? Home Depot. Yup...Home Depot. They refused to price gauge Mainers during their time of need! They could have, but they didn't. They sold their gas generators to us without raising their regular price by even a $1.00. Wonderful....and Mainers will never forget that either. My point of sharing this? Well, after reading Peter King's scathing article, I realized how much the New Orlean people must be suffering. I couldn't imagine being rounded up like cattle and herded off to another state with no money and no way to reach family or friends. How tragic. And how tragic that no one on the local, state, and federal level said, "Hey, we need to get everyone back here to work together to rebuild our (and their) great, beautiful city!". No one said it and they're still not saying it. I'm sure some don't want to come back, but god damn it, release the money to give the people who do want to come back some hope and let them band together as neighbors to get the job done. We had it here in Maine back in 1998 and I would give anything to be able to share that attitude with the people of New Orleans! We love you all and are hurting right along side you. Americans have not forgot about you....but the government has. Shame on them for turning their backs.
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