This is direct to JAN ANDREWS and JENNIFER DAVIS. I had three feet of water in my home. I had homeowners and no flood. I have not received a FEMA grant, nor SBA loan. I have received wind damage money for the roof of my home. THAT IS IT. I will repair my home at my own expense. I do not have a place to house my family as I rip out the walls of my home MYSELF and than PAY someone to put it together. I HAVE NOT received help from a church group, or anyone else on the repair of my home. I am doing myself but if you loose everything, your town looses everything, you have a job in your town you will willing accept a FEMA trailer. Come here, come see this town and these people. I pray you never know what we all are going thru as your response would be much more caring. What if it was your parents homeless and you and your whole family also, no where to go. You people need to be in IRAQ not America.

Thank you Justin. Also, Diane in Boston, thanks for your post. My parents (as many) can be the people you are talking about. The hardest part is for them they have no child's home they can go to because theirs is gone to. It is hard for me because I cannot help them. I have no room to offer them. They do not know where they will live nor how they will pay for it. I pray and hope someone helps the elderly as there are no apartments or etc. for them to move into. They have medical conditions and doctors they love, some so old the do not have it in them to move, nor do they have it into them to start over.
All you here, do you know how hard it is to hear your father fight back his tears at nigh as you sleep day 7 in a shelter.
I can careless about myself, I care most about my family.
Thanks to all over the US who understand. It helps us move forward without anger!

I happened on to this blog by accident and was glad I did I just cannot believe there are fellow americans who begrudge Hurricane Katrina victims of help. What do they think they would do if it happened to them.I had hurricane insurance and supplies did everything possible to be prepared. But how do you prepare for such a thing? I have never had food stamps or govt assistance in my life my husband and I have worked very hard to take care of our family. Yesterday I dug in a box in front of a flooded bldg looking for a pair of shoes for my kids, and stood in line thankful to receive some food. Do you have any idea what it is like to do that? Do you know what it is like to have dead neighbors on your street? Or wonder if one of your kids survived the storm in their neighborhood for days because you were unable to get out from where you evacuated? The people of the Gulf Coast especially Bay St Louis and Waveland & Pearlington have been to hell and back and have to justify getting a "spanking new 30 ft trailer". The absolute nerve of some people just blow me away. The citizens of the Coast very much appreciate all that has been done for them by volunteers they are a bright spot in the whole thing

Everybody is talking about how the Government will spend Billions overseas in the blink of an eye, but I don't think the money is the issue. No matter how much money the Government throws at this disaster, there aren't hundreds of thousands of trailers just sitting around unused. Trailers need to be manufactured, electrical need to be pulled to the trailers. I work in the construction field and know that these things take lots of time! No matter how much money you throw at it, it still takes time and manpower. Thank you to FEMA for what it is trying to do!

Some of the posts say that you should always be prepared for an emergency. Yes, I thought that also. Couple of years ago we got everything you could imagine that would see us through for weeks - yes, weeks not just a few days. We even got a generator that would kick in when the power failed. Guess what? Our house burned to the ground one year before Hurricane Katrina. In May before the storm we started to rebuild, we once again got all our "supplies" together, most we put at our rental house, much of the other items were stored in the work shop that survived the fire. We had refrig., window air conditioner, generator - we figured if we lost the rental house then we could live in work shop on our property (where we were rebuilding). When we evacuated we even took the time to leave one car at a friends house (tree fell on it) and take another one to our property so there would be better odds that one of them would be OK. Now you would think that all of the above is a PLAN. Our property with work shop and all emergency supplies is in an area in Pass Christian that had no water during Hurricane Camille. See which way I am going? The work shop went under 15 feet of water, there goes the other car and much of our supplies and plans for a place to stay if necessary. The rental house had three very large trees fall on it. At least our supplies there came through OK and after doing repairs and clean up inside we had a place to live.

So you see - you can plan all you want for getting your supplies together and all it takes is the wind driven surge or your house being blow away and you've lost it all.

PS: since we lost everything in the fire at least we didn't have much to lose to the water (except all the EMERGENCY supplies) And one more thing, after seeing what the surge did to friends houses and those that withstood but had water inside - yes, I am relieved that I had already lost it all to that fire!

i happen to fall on this site by accident. it was to my amazement of the opinions that are out there in wake of the natural disaters that our great nation was impposed upon. alot would say it is paradise most of the year. my fear for the safety of my family does not create such a paradise. no matter what happens in this world there will always be the less fortunate that gives us that shove to lend a hand to our fellow mankind. now we can sit here and complain about where all our dollars are being spent, but at least for the most of us we can say that we are alive. those who have lost lives my blessings and heart goes out to you. to the less fortunate as well i hope that hope is a bright light just around the corner of you. i could sit here and write all the good and bad things about this ordeal but that does not solve the problem nor would define the reasons for it. i love this country and i am proud for at least i can walk on the grass look at the stars and talk to others with tireney oppression or persecution. so maybe just maybe we need to take a longer look at ourselves and see what awe can do to help keep the untited states of america the way it is.......FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!! TYVM

In 2003 our area was hit by hurricane Isabelle, I think it hit land at a catagory 1, I live less than a mile from the beach and the damage was unbelievable. We went without electricity for almost 2 weeks and some went a little longer. We thought it was so hard! I cant imagine being in anyones shoes who is suffering from Katrina, so you know what? If FEMA or ANYONE else can/will help them good! Thats what they are there for. I think anyone complaining need to complain about the everyday moochers who think they are supposed to live off the government, not people who actually need and DESERVE help. Good luck to you and everyone!!

It absolutely shocks me to hear how cruel some of these people are. Why would anyone take the time to write hateful and unproductive posts about people who have been and are still living out an unbelievable nightmare? No one ever dreams something like this could happen to them personally. I don't think anyplace in this country or world that is safe from some sort of diaster, natural or man-made. For those who are writing the self-righteous and judgemental posts: be ready. To all the good folks, thanks for encouraging us.

The things some of these say make me absolutely sick. I cannot believe that the time, money and effort I put into helping anyone in need could someday go to you. You definitely are NOT worthy of America, you know who you are.

What are you thinking J&J? We help every country in the world when disaster hits. Have you really been watching CNN or FNN? Do you see the miles of lumber and brick lying on the (MS) coastline? Do you not know that those people work too?!? They pay taxes too! They are OK with you when you are on vacation during Mardi Gras or visiting the casinos or eating fresh shrimp. But now they need (us) and you look down on their despair. My God think about it: Tomorrow you wake up and your house is gone (or) shall I say your Mansion? You car is gone. No lights, phone, gas or water. No Police or Fireman. The Nanny can't come in and neither can the cleaning lady! No Mall no grocery store. No MAIL! No school, no office building. No cell phone service to call your Insurance Co. I don't care how rich you are, your plastic doesn't "swipe" in mid air! And God forbid your purse was washed away inthe night right along with everything else! Where's your plastic now? I have been in the Insurance industry since 1991. UNDERWRITER/SALES/MARKETING/FIELD REP/CLAIMS for MAJOR carriers! Did you know sweetie that some of the most expensive and broad Homeowners Policies do not cover flood (wind/water/rain)? And even if it does, do you know the limit on Additional Living Expenses? 30 days. Yes, even on "your" policy. So if you're in a disaster such as this and it's been 68 days-you've been on your own for 38 of them already! What do you do? Your whole world is gone. Your husband's job is gone. Can you afford to rent a home (cash) long enough to rebuild the entire coast? To furnish it, rent a car, buy new clothing, and of course just go out and get a new job in HOUSTON or somewhere you have never lived in your life! Well God bless if you can, but most people can't. Don't be ignorant to the depth of this tragedy PEOPLE. You can't possible prepare enough to have something like this happen to you.

Too many people want to judge what this lady had/has or should have had before they look inside themselves and ask "what would I want if this happened to me?" Probably it's as simple as a foot up to start over. Yes, it's her property. We should think in terms of the trailer being a temporary home until they rebuild. Winter's coming folks. You can't rebuild a house from a tent. And another thing, we definitely should help those who can't help themselves, for whatever reason - not enough insurance, no insurance - doesn't matter. Why can't we just say out loud there certainly would be a lot more to go around if we kept US$$$ at home instead of sending US$$$ overseas.

Yes, boy are we lucky. Us slackers here getting ourselves a free trailer after 68 days of being homeless. You guys have no idea what it is like to work hard, pay taxes, pay insurance premiums and find yourself homeless overnight. Our entire town was wiped out. No electric, water, sewer, cell phone, land phone, cable, internet, mail, or anything else from the current century. Insurance adjusters trying to welch out of what you paid to have covered. Jobs are gone. Businesses all destroyed. Grocery stores closed. Gas stations out of gas. No apts, hotels or homes to rent within hundreds of miles. Schools destroyed. We worked in the muck to salvage what little we could from the wreckage that was our homes. It was 90 degrees, flies and bugs were biting us. Mold and mildrew caused respiratory infections. People got staph infections. Some found that the few items they worked to salvage were stolen in the night. Airports and rental car agencies were closed. I had to get up in the night to wet my hair so that I could sleep a little in the humid, excessive heat. We went to a relief center to get some "free" food one day and we were insulted and treated like less than human. We are not sitting around waiting for the government to "wipe our noses" We are the survivors of the worst natural disaster in U.S. history and we were just like many of you before Katrina. The rebuilding effort is as bad as the hurricane. Many of the service companies coming from all over the country to "help" us rebuild are quoting us two, three times a fair price, trying to get rich from our misery. I was quoted 15,000 for a job I finally paid someone 2,400 to do. We have no idea when the insurance companies will pay off. In the mean time we have no place to live, no job and absurd quotes for repair work. Yep, we got it good in our FEMA trailers.

I do believe we Americans deserve at least the same treatment we give to other countries in time of natural disasters. It is not a hand out and most of the people in the region pay taxes and work for a living just as you or I. They deserve respect from their country and their fellow citizens. It so easy for us to be in their shoes someday because every part of our country has its own natural disasters be it flood, earthquakes, ice storms, or tornados. Our government owes us just as we owe it, and sometimes they have to payback to us.

Whew! Well, I am so glad they are in a decent place to live! 68 days seems like a lifetime when you are living in a tent. My sister, who lives in Lake Arthur, LA, got the news last week that her trailer will arrive next week some time. I am so happy for her. This has been very difficult for her. Thank God the trailer will sit right next to her home. Now we have to wait to see if the house will be demolished or worth saving.

Katrina has left a path of unthinkable devistation in her wake. People see houses still standing that were filled with four feet of rancid water for days and days. Mold growing on the walls, in the insulation, in the rugs. MOLD EVERYWHERE!! and make no mistake MOLD kills. The only effective way to detroy mold is to burn it. I can't believe the ignorance of the spoiled people who are saying get jobs! stop looking for handouts!! CRAP!!! If I were your mother, I would disown you!!!
What you are really saying is create jobs so you can get jobs and live in tents until you create more jobs for more people so they can live in tents too??
COME ON!!! These people pay taxes like everybody else and if your so dead set against helping them!! I suggest that you insist the people in New York give back the MULTI-MILLIONS raised after 911. I guess all those widows and children who lost a loved one..a father or mother, should just get jobs as well, and stop thier damn whining and crying. IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE and some things are SIMPLY UNFORGIVEABLE.
Thse poor people who just got battered need to
" Get a job ? "
You need to lose a job and live in a delapitated football stadium, starving, thirsty, unable to bathe or leave and without hope, surrounded by hysteria, violence and Anger, for a few long hot humid days and let us see that you would NOT be whining and crying for help. I suspect that those who have unkind words to say to those who suffered Katrina's wrath have some pretty deep seated issues that go beyond what they type here.. perhaps racism is a big one, but they are just to afraid to say it openly. If there's ever a draft.. I also hope they call you kinds of people first, after all the military hates whiners as well.. seems to me, you non whineing, get a job type, would fit right in.
I have said it before, and I'll say it again !!
" if your not part of the solution, your very much a part of the problem "!!!!!

To kat in canada..... What makes you think us whinners have not been through something like this. Dont sit an look down your nose at others until you have seen this for yourself. I myself have been through something like this an i didnt have noone to just hand me everything without helping myself. So Kat dont write long distant about something you know nothing about. Come on down an see first hand at people who wont help themselves.

To Mike Hiding Somewhere In The U.S. --- Boorish.. absolutely Boorish of you. I dare you to stand in New Orleans and tell those people that you feel they have not suffered enough in your opinion. I don't look down my nose by speaking truth. Human suffering has no govornment, it has no color, race religion or creed. It knows not poverty.. it knows not life or death.. It is what it is... suffering.
" My children, way up here" raised over 500.00 for Katrina relief. They did NOT ask me about Govornments, they did not ask me about poverty or racism. They witnessed the devistation on t.v. and over the airways and decided the right thing to do was to help thier fellow man no matter where he lived. I think perhaps it is you and those like you looking down your noses at the good people who endured this nightmare, and most especially the children who did not ask to be born into this mess but are victims at times, of thier own birth right.
Would you deny them love? help? support? Would you tell them thier parents don't deserve help and so they should suffer too??? Are we really dealing with perhaps a bit of jealousy on your part? or maybe a bit of closeted racism?? because help did not arrive when you needed it? Maybe it's because you did not suffer a category 5 hurricane or a terrorist attack. I could care less for your reasons. There are people in every country who " won't help themselves " but most often they dont all suffer through the same event at the same time. Some are there by thier own choice and others are simply vicitms of life and society. Thousands of lives are displaced, families torn apart, children and parents missing and far far to many dead. Why do you not want to preserve the history, culture and heritage of New Orleans?? It belongs to you.. it belongs to every American.
I'll ask you again, when 911 happened did you begrudge those people the help love and support they received and deserved?? Should we insist that money be returned that your gov. handed out? should we insist that the world trade center never be rebuilt if it will cost the Gov. and tax payers money? Can't those men, women and children of 911 who lost somebody get jobs too ?? Human kindness, compassion and empathy were the answer then and remain the answer now. We can't truely judge who should get and who should not get. We can't pick and choose one disaster being more important than another. We can simply say here it is, here is our love and support, and if you are NOT entitled to it but you take it, you will one day answer to a much higher power than your Govornment.. you will answer to God. I refuse to play God with the lives of others. I can't sleep at night when I know somebody is suffering and it is within my means to help. I am not sure what upset you the most about my post. Was it that I dare uttered the Gods honest truth or was it that I uttered it publically ??? maybe educated a few people?? There is enough hate in this world to go around. The least you can do it love your own people.
Look after your own people when within your means, and especially when something of this magnitude or 911 occurs. Help first.. ask questions later...
I pray you never have to beg, I pray you never find yourself in this very same situation and have somebody speak down to you as you have to me, but most especially to your very own countrymen. they did NOT deserve any of this and they certainly don't deserve your attitude, unkind words and hatefulness towards them. More and more, I am saddended to think that this perhaps this is becoming the American way.
If your not part of the solution, you are deffinately part of the problem. Ask yourself what side are you on?

I am one of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina- I for one am not one to ask for a "hand out" from Uncle Sam- but when your insurance is not enough and you have lost your job and everything you own---who should we turn to? Just for the record, I didn't ask for the trailer- they called us! So those of you who have never been through something so tragic and think you can handle it- come move to Louisiana or one of the other Gulf States and see how you feel when all of your belongings and everything you hold near to you is destroyed all at one time.....I don't think you would be pointing fingers then. By the way, I am also a taxpayer-so why shouldn't my hard earned money go to helping my family when I am in need.....

Its not about expecting a free ride or hand out, or not be willing to work and all the other sterotypes that come from apparently uneducated people. When a tornado rips through Kansas you dont hear people in Louisiana saying ..thats what you get for living in tornado ally. When an earthquake rips open cali you dont hear us say ...thats what you get for living there, wild fires rip through ..so be it, terrorists attack your comunity ..ohhhh tough luck ...none of that is ever said..meanwhile the Great old U.S. has collected taxes here from the ppl of Louisiana for years and gave nothing back to build levess or restore the coastal barriers that protect us from such massive storms....I dont believe there is a place in the U.S. that is immune from Natural Disaster...It easy to say you knew you were in danger by living there but some people were born and raised there..makes it a little harder to pick up and leave because something might happen...no person in Kansas that gew up there bails because they might have a tornado....The federal government lied to the ppl of Lousiana and told us we were protected from hurricanes to an extent ..turned out they only took out tax dollars and ran..thier levees failed us and the response to help get ppl out after all was said and done was a compete failure, Not to let local politics off the hook ...nagin, broussard and the rest should have their day to be ousted to but lets not stop there ....this goes all the way to the top ....you may call it a hand out ...I call it a refund ..i pay taxes and work my a$$ of and was told I was protected ..I dont want a hand out ..I want a god damn refund ......

that is ashame that people are just going to say we don't deserve any kind of help down here on the gulf coast you people must be all rich and think your S#!* does'nt stink that is just down right cruel.I lost everything i'd had.and it's not that easy to just move somewhere else especially when your not rich like me!and many others here on the coast.ya know for all you cruel and hatefull people out there who are writting all these hatefull things maybe you should just take a little trip down here and see for yourself the devistation that we are all going through and maybe you will change your mind and say "HEY THESE PEOPLE REALLY DO NEED ALL THE HELP THEY CAN GET" and i also want to thank all those who did lend a hand and helped out thank you all very much and may god bless you always.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNU499JS6kQ

Insurance finds a way not to pay and then FEMA calls our hole in the roof "insignifagant damage" but hey lets make sure the millionairs in Miami get some new sand.