Insight

Words fail wrath of Katrina

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina (no pun intended) there has been a complete saturation (pun intended). The saturation came not only from the copious amounts of moisture that now floods the Heart of Dixie, but from the media covering this disaster from all angles and the charitable organizations that are scrambling to help the evacuees. Every day I turn on CNN and find the onslaught of coverage as thick as it was on Sept. 11. The only difference is that this was an act of God, not an act of war.

So where am I, the lowly columnist, supposed to stake my claim to this event?

I can't write about the devastation in New Orleans and Mississippi; the photojournalists have given us enough to look at. A thousand of my words can do nothing but come in a distant second to each and every heart-aching photo.

I can't write about the people because the rest of the print and broadcast media have done that. Every story now is not about the water level in the city or the billions of dollars in damage, the stories are about the people who have gone through hell and have come out on the other side minus homes, possessions, memories and, at times, friends and family members. Each person in the bayou has a devastating story and no two are the same. The rest of the media are going to tell each of those stories if it takes a year. They did it with Sept. 11, why not this?

I can't write about the charitable organizations out there trying to help each and every doe-eyed person in sight because they are doing it themselves. During each commercial break on television and on the radio there are advertisements asking people to "dig deep" and "help those who have been displaced by this tragedy." The American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Goodwill, The United Way and every other organization that posts a bucket outside of every grocery store and on ever major intersection in the country has found ways to raise money.

I can't write about how even the private sector has gotten in on raising money. Companies ranging from car dealerships to movie theaters to restaurants are doing what they can during this time of economic strife. The larger companies are sending money as well as provisions to the people in need in the south as well as to the people who have been transplanted to neighboring states to seek refuge or to start their lives over completely.

I can't write about the mess the Bush Administration has made of this entire fiasco. The bloggers have done that job so well that the legitimate media is starting to take notice. The questions are flying around the White House about why incompetent and unqualified people were put in charge of the one agency (FEMA) that needed to spring into efficient and decisive action and, as of right now, there is no real answer. Speculation persists that the Bush Administration did not react due to racism; that helping impoverished minorities is not high on the list of priorities of this administration. I could write about this, but I can't. I've been beaten to it.

I can't even take the local angle on this one. Once this happened, the local media went through and found everyone who had ever lived, has family in, traveled to, vacationed in, took a business trip to, and even changed planes in New Orleans and asked them about the devastation. The sound bytes sound the same-everyone is sad, terrified, and wanting to help in any way they can. Once the busloads of 500 evacuees arrived at Lowry to the open arms of 1,100 volunteers from the Denver area the story was already told, written, and received by the viewing public.

I can't even by cynical or even a bit cheeky about the situation, The Onion newspaper has beat me to the punch. Their headline of "God Outdoes The Terrorists Once Again" said it all. Now there's a void in which I live and I am struggling to find a way out of.

It's almost expected that a columnist, any columnist, will write a piece either centered on the tragedy or about something surrounding the tragedy. This piece is my contribution to the ever-mounting stack of things written about Hurricane Katrina. I don't want to be an echo or a mynah bird about any of this, but I do not want to come off as insensitive or callused to this situation. I just have nothing new to say, nothing novel to contribute, so I will just say this and then no more.