Back to Pearlington

In a few weeks, our group heads back to Pearlington for a week of work with the neighbors there. We will be camping out in the plastic pods provided by the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA). I almost wrote our group from Summerville, but one of the guys going with us is flying down from Boston. Our group should be larger than the Mighty 13 from April. About half of that group from April is going this time. I think that we are doing a great job giving an opportunity to members and friends of the the church to use their talents. Hopefully, the planning and recruiting will get easier. We still have to battle the thoughts of a lot of people that the Katrina-damaged areas should be back on their feet by now. Once you go there, you will see that the scale is so large that 5 years may not be enough.

After all, Charleston had pretty well recovered from Hugo after 2 years. I will scan in an article in the Post and Courier from Saturday that made this type of statement. Enough for now...

Pearlington here we come in a few short weeks. We have a few spots left to go if you are interested for the week of October 6 - 13.

Felix Missed/Ignored

Maybe I was busier this past week (I know that I was), but I didn't really see much information about Felix in the media coverage that I scanned. I remember a lot more coverage for Dean. But, evidently since Dean didn't get a high death count because of where it hit, the next Category 5 storm didn't rate much attention. Particularly since Felix was never at any risk to hit the U.S. For a while, Dean had a chance to hit the southeast Texas coast. To the point that the Texas governor had declared an emergency and activated the National Guard. Ho-hum, we are complacent now when a Category 5 makes landfall. Never before have 2 Category 5 hurricanes made landfall in the same year, but no big deal. Hurricanes need a big death count or costly destruction to get attention. And, Felix I guess you are not there yet.

Felix went through similar areas as Hurricane Mitch a few years ago. But, CNN only mentions maybe 40 as dead. If Mitch killed more than 10,000 with 8,000 missing, then you expect bigger numbers. But, do we care? Probably not. Our president is more focused on proving that the war in Iraq is making unexpected positive progress in some areas than what we could or should be doing to help our Central American neighbors.

So, we do what we can. Mississippi is within driving distance. Hopefully, we won't need to be anywhere else to help recover. Recovery from Katrina will keep us busy for the next few years. See you in Pearlington in a few weeks...