MoPo'ers:
I
received this message from Sue (and Ed) from LAMP today. They asked me to
forward it to all of you since their connection to MoPo and the internet is
obviously severely limited due to their current situation. I'm glad to hear they
are fine, but sad to hear of what they have had to endure. Please read on for
their message...
Scott
MoPo
List Owner
Sent: Monday, September 05, 2005 4:06 PM
============
Dear Friends:
We have had limited access to our emails but I had to let y'all know
just how overwhelmed we were when we read Sue Heim's email. The response
has been unbelievable. I cannot tell you how much this support helps
us on so many levels. Ed told me yesterday that he felt like he was living
with Sybil -- I have so many personalities right now and they are subject to
change moment to moment. And to make matters worse, our van window was
smashed in the hotel parking lot and two things were stolen. One was my
son's guitar amp. He worked all last summer to buy it. The second --
which is the real heartbreaker -- they stole a bag that contained all of our
home movies. My kids' gym meets, baseball games, birthday parties, family
vacations -- 20 years of our memories gone. I think this has been the
hardest thing for me so far.
I will be sending personal emails out to those that have helped as soon as
we can get situated with a computer.
Anyway -- to try to brighten things just a little. Our parish is
allowing us to come in and assess the situation and get any needed papers or
things we need. We then have to leave again for approximately one
month. We have no idea what we're going home to. Our area sustained
serious wind damage but we've heard very little about flood waters. We
live on the westbank side of the Mississippi so we are not affected by the
levees that were breached HOWEVER, we were told that our community became
a war zone with looters and thugs coming through stealing and then trashing and
burning houses. An acquaintance of ours that stayed shot and
killed one intruder and wounded two
more. Our neighbors are patrolling the streets with guns because we have
had absolutely no help from anyone.
Let me make one poiint - do not believe all the garbage that is being
spewed on TV. When I'm able to set up a computer, I will address all the
misgivings and misinformations based on eyewitness accounts. DO NOT
BELIEVE THAT THIS IS A RACE ISSUE -- IT IS NOT. The community of St.
Bernard is predominantly white middle class and they have been abandoned by
everyone. As of Friday, when one of my cousins who is a parish
employee was able to escape, there were no national guard, no FEMA, no food, no
water. Thousands of people were still stranded on their rooftops.
One of the St. Bernard officials reported told the residents to fend for
themselves because NO ONE WAS COMING. This hits particularly at home for
me because this is where my sister lives and where I have a lot of
cousins. Have only heard from one -- the others live in some of the worse
areas hit and I can only pray that they escaped. I will address this!
matter in more detail when I have the opportunity.
AGAIN -- GOD BLESS OUR FRIENDS AT MOPO. We will have a better idea of
our situation when we return to Austin on Wednesday.
AS FOR LAMP -- IT IS UP AND RUNNING. Our database log got full which
happens on a regular basis. It takes a phone call to our server to get it
back on line. Rest assured that we are monitoring LAMP and will handle any
problems like this as we can.
Hope to have some good news when we return.
AGAIN THANK YOU FOR YOUR KINDNESS AND SUPPORT - YOU TRULY DO NOT REALIZE
HOW MUCH THIS HELPS RIGHT NOW!
sUE
Click here to donate to the Hurricane Katrina relief effort.
