¶
"The woman and child walked toward the interstate exit ramp. She held his hand and he held a box of Scooby-Doo cereal.
'Granny,' he said, 'where are we going?'"
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In that short paragraph, Anne Hull,
a Washington Post reporter, captured the human tragedy in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Thousands are homeless
along the Gulf
Associated Press photo
Coast. It will be months, if not years,
before they find themselves -- if they ever do. Finally, several
days after the storm, appropriate response is beginning.
Here in
Delaware and around the nation, people are responding. For most,
it's a matter of finding appropriate ways to express solidarity
with our fellow citizens -- and, yes, brothers and sisters --
who have been victimized by what will certainly be regarded as
the worst natural disaster ever to have hit the United States.
¶
The most shocking thing that came through
the exhaustive media coverage of the past few days has to be the
slowness with which the authorities came to realize the
magnitude of what was happening.
Post columnist Colbert King called this a
"time for action, not outrage."
"Mother Nature delivered her own version of
'shock and awe' on Monday, leaving the Gulf Coast with the kind
of death and destruction that only America's worst enemies could
applaud. Without firing a shot or dropping a bomb, Hurricane
Katrina pulverized Mississippi, Louisiana and parts of Alabama,
wreaking havoc on the lives of hundreds of thousands, as well as
the nation's economy, for months to come."
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But there is no escaping the inevitable
blame-fixing. This by New York Times correspondent Maureen Dowd:
"America is once more
plunged into a snake pit of anarchy, death,
looting, raping, marauding thugs, suffering
innocents, a shattered infrastructure, a gutted
police force, insufficient troop levels and
criminally negligent government planning. But
this time it's happening in America.
"W. drove his
budget-cutting Chevy to the levee, and it wasn't
dry. Bye, bye, American lives. "I don't think
anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," he
told Diane Sawyer."
MORE
You can read
more commentary from around the nation and the world at
Delaforum's
PULSE.
A bit of irony:
Katrina is a German name. It means 'pure'.
¶
Governor Ruth Ann Minner is encouraging
Delawareans to assist the victims of Hurricane Katrina through
donations to the Red Cross and other private agencies, while
Delaware National Guard troops and the Delaware Emergency
Management Agency help to supply needed resources to the
affected southern states.
MORE
¶
Delaware Energy Office offers some tips for
conserving energy in the face of the spike in gasoline prices,
partly as an aftershock of Katrina.
MORE
The office also is soliciting help in
ferreting out possible price gouging at the pump.
CLICK HERE
to access its website and help the monitoring effort.
¶
The state goes to the bond market next week
-- as usual, in AAA shape.
MORE
¶
And DelDOT is looking to rebuild another
covered bridge.
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