Aid

Many of you have written me, letting me know that you are seeing news coverage of our disaster. You are letting me know that your church is sending a convoy of aid to help us. You are sending boxes of donated items to me to pass out. Some of you are even trusting me, a stranger in cyberland, with cash to hand out to the hurricane refugees who need a tank of gas or a bit of traveling food so they can go back home to see the damage or so they can drive to distant relatives.

Thank you for thinking about us.

Thank you to the Hollywood stars who are pledging donations to the Red Cross. Thank you to President Bush for sending troops and ships. We will most definitely shed a few tears when we see our military come into our waters. This is a military-loving area, full of patriots.

Thank you to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, Southern Baptists, and Samaritan's Purse.

Thank you to FEMA.

On this, the fourth day, we are not seeing much of the aid yet. FEMA keeps trying, but they are running out of food, water and ice before everyone is served. The Red Cross is trying to open more shelters, but it is not quite enough.

Right now, the aid is arriving mostly through the help of our own.

One local man in Mobile waved bags of ice in the air until motorists arrived to take it off his hands.

A man in Gulfport, Mississippi opened his produce warehouse and let the homeless hurricane victims in his town take it all. He said he could feed 40,000 people with that much food, if given the chance.

Today, someone went to the Alabama-Mississippi border with purchased water bottles and passed them out to strangers.

One man at Sam's Club in Pensacola, Florida, bought six generators and several gas cans to take back to his hometown in Mississippi.

We passed a pickup truck heading to Alabama with a grill in the truck bed and a U-Haul trailer attached to it. On the U-Haul was a homemade sign on a florescent green poster: "Sarasota Hurricane Relief". That family, from Sarasota, Florida, knows firsthand exactly what hurricane victims need and want most: a hot meal. His grill will be put to good use in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

Soon, we will receive your aid. Today, we are receiving our own.

by Lori Seaborg