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[Bror8588 at aol.com (Bror8588@aol.com)]

Some of The Hurricane Victims are in Texas and the  problem is growing in 
terms of rendering aid.  These people have lost  everything but their lives and 
need some direction soon.  Is there any plan  to re-direct their lives?  The 
feeding and care cannot go on forever.   I hope that there are Social Workers, 
Counselors, Religious Organizations, and  representatives from New Orleans and 
Louisiana as well as the good people from  Houston who are talking to these 
people and organizing some  aftercare.   
The report from Houston:  
It's 4:45 a.m. on Friday, September 2nd, and tension is rising at the  
Astrodome in Houston.  
The governor of Texas and the mayor of Houston have opened the Astrodome to  
evacuees from Louisiana. The enormous ground level of the Astrodome has 
already  filled to absolute capacity with thousands of small cots, and every one is  
taken. There are not enough to go around, and some hold mother and child or 
two  children. Many others sleep on blankets in the hallways that ring every 
level of  the dome, and hundreds more try to sleep in the hard wooden chairs 
meant to  house sports fans for three hours at a time.  
Against this surreal backdrop, a lonely figure trudges the uneven aisles  
holding a cardboard sign aloft with the names of loved ones who are missing.  
Our small group of volunteers has just arrived to help serve breakfast in the 
 Astrodome, but we quickly learn that the plan has changed. For the safety of 
the  untold thousands already here, the fire marshal has closed the Astrodome 
to new  arrivals, but the evacuation is chaotic, and the buses just keep 
coming.  
"All those buses still have people on them," someone with a walkie-talkie  
tells us, pointing to a line of darkened motor coaches stretching out of sight  
around the dome. "We're opening Reliant Arena (a separate building nearby), 
but  the situation there is tense. We need you over there."  
We load tables and supplies into two trucks and walk from the Astrodome to  
Reliant Arena, where we pass an impromptu medical "clinic" filled with sick and 
 injured evacuees and bleary-eyed doctors, nurses, paramedics and police  
officers.  
On the far side of the building, we arrive at a room where we will serve  
breakfast, and through a long wall of glass, we get our first glimpse of the new  
arrivals outside. Standing ten deep, in lines that run the length of our 
large  room and stretch out of sight, these are the first who arrived after the  
Astrodome?s closing. Out there in the darkness, thousands more are still in  
their buses. No one on this side of the glass knows what they have already  
endured to get here. Many have spent the prior four days in the sweltering heat  
and stench of the Superdome, the closest thing to hell on earth.  
Now they have heard that the Astrodome is full and do not know whether they  
will be allowed to stay or be bused to another city, or to another state. They 
 are at their wits' end. Tempers have flared, emotions are high.  
Within an hour we are ready to serve and the doors are opened. As evacuees  
enter the building, their identities are recorded, and they proceed immediately 
 to our three serving lines for their first hot meal in days: two waffles, 
two  sausage patties, one pat of butter, one serving of syrup, one box of juice 
and  one big spoonful of grits.  
During the next five hours the line moves continuously. Word filters in that  
Houston has opened its convention center to evacuees as well, and some of the 
 volunteers leave our building and the Astrodome to help out downtown. 
Hundreds  of other volunteers pour in to replace them, including at least 25 travel  
counselors and the top management from Vacations To Go.  
I've never volunteered in such an enormous operation coming together on the  
fly, but I have only good things to say about the supervisor from food service 
 company Aramark, and the people I could not see behind the scenes. We knew 
the  folks on the other side of the glass were desperately hungry, and we 
worried  among ourselves whether the food would last. None of us knew how much food 
there  was, or how many waited outside, but we did know that no one had 
expected this  huge new group for breakfast. We ran out of some things, for a 
while, but we  never ran out of everything at the same time, and the food line 
never stopped.  
By 11:15, every one of our neighbors from New Orleans had entered the  
facility and received a hot meal.  
I will not soon forget the faces of the people as they came through the line. 
 Many were dazed or grieving, and some still wore the clothes they had on 
when  Katrina struck. Some wore bandages and struggled to hold their plates 
steady.  Others tried to smile, and made a point of expressing their gratitude and  
shaking our hands in the midst of having lost everything.  
The little old ladies, with their sugary Nawlins drawls of "Thank you,  
darlin'," were truly a sign of Amazing Grace.  
But this was just the first meal of the day, in the first week of the first  
month that evacuees will need help. It?s a scenario that is playing out across 
 Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.  
The Deep South is in trouble, and the need is as wide and as deep as the  
Mississippi.