Today, its the two year anniversary of the Katrina tragedy. I once again stray from the topic of design to write about my feelings as of today and give an update from my earlier post. First I want to assure everyone that my uncle is fine, it turns out that weeks earlier he had left New Orleans and went to visit is daughter further north in Louisiana.

The people New Orleans and Mississippi today aren't much better off then they were two years ago. The suicide rate is higher along with crime, there are still entire neighborhoods with no homes. There are people being poisoned to death by the formaldehyde soaked walls of their FEMA trailers. Trailers that weren't intended for long term usage, especially in such a humid climate. Yet only now the government has moved to start removing people from them.

Some people that think the people of New Orleans are looking for hand outs, that if they had better educations or the wherewithal they wouldn't be in that situation. But those people are wrong, Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans is a litmus test to how our government will handle national tragedies in the future. It wont matter how high our educations or incomes are, we too will be left out in the cold. The survivor's of Katrina and the flood are not crying for hand outs they are crying for a hand up.

So how am a feeling today? I am still sad & angry, but I am also hopeful. That as a people we come to understand that in order for history to not repeat itself in our neck of the woods, we must act now. Call you local agencies and governments and find out if they have a plan in place. A system setup to not only solve these issues but to inform the citizens of the necessary steps to take to limit the damage during the situations and after.

I don't mean to sound preachy or tell anyone how to live their lives. I just hope that we all take a good long look at this issue and ask ourselves, "what would I do."