A hearty "Thank you!" to all of you who so promptly asked, after Katrina revisited, about the friends I referred to when originally addressing the hurricane Katrina situation.

The last personal report I had from one of them (she's the one who told me about the power being out) was that the power was still out, there was much flooding, even more worry, but they were indeed doing well enough under the circumstances.  I was happy to hear that, although I still stand by my original response to staying in New Orleans: Are you an idiot?

Regardless of the response, I feel for those caught in the storm's path.  I am, obviously, especially happy to hear that my friends in the area survived unscathed and are doing as well as can be expected.  I realize that many of those who stayed did not have means of evacuating, no way to move all of those who needed to be moved, and only stayed out of absolute necessity.  This is of course discounting the laughably fatuous who stayed because they… well, they’re dumb.

Political aside: The government — any government — should have done more to move those unable to move themselves.  There were too many left behind who only remained there out of necessity, mostly based on the inability to relocate their loved ones successfully in such a short amount of time… or at all.  It's shameful; let's learn from our mistake and take action to ensure that, in the face of any kind of catastrophe, we the people do all we can to ensure the well being of the least of these.

My intention was to respond to increasing e-mails about my friends' status.  Luckily they are all well based on the sliding scale of hurricanes — alive, relatively unharmed (physically more than emotionally), and sheltered in an as yet un-flooded building.  I think we can all say that we hope it remains that way.