AS I SEE IT...

Help is on its way...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9175611/

If you take the time to view the news videos of what has been going on in New Orleans you just might realize how desperate the conditions are.

http://www.wdsu.com/index.html

Realize that the crisis in New Orleans could happen anywhere... and the response by people responsible for the emergency response to a major disaster have failed miserably.

The people you see in New Orleans are the everyday working men and women. The working poor, if you will. Five days after hurricane Katrina and evacutions are still going on. People have died, and people are still dying while waiting five days for help to arrive.

It has taken five days to delivery water to the 25th largest city in the United States of America.

Tens of thousands left waiting for help for five days. Right here in Houma, refugees have arrived with barely the clothes on their backs... the same for Thibodaux, and Morgan City.

Evidently the same kind of communication problems that plagued New York on 9/11 have happened here - hindering rescue operations. The reports of lawlessness, shootings, and looting in the city added fear.

America put massive amounts of troops on the ground in Iraq within 24 hours, but five days later tens of thousands of people in New Orleans are only beginning to be rescued. Of course the majority of the people needing rescue are the Invisible People, who are all too often taken for granted. These people are the labor force that enables a city the size of New Orleans to function. The cooks, hotel maids, janitors, doormen, taxi drivers, sales clerks, fast food workers, and a multitude of others who work in the jobs that serve.

If I was anyone of them, I'd think long and hard before I'd plan to come back to New Orleans.

I'm one of the lucky ones... we had very little damage, but we had a good vehicle and some money to leave town, and get back. I shutter to think what could have happened if we didn't have a car, and some money. My yard man actually came by yesterday and cut my grass. For him, that is what he does. My water man came by this morning to delivery water.

For tens of thousands their daily lives are simply gone. They don't know where their going, or what their going to do where ever they end up. Hurricane Katrina is not singularly responsible for the devastation in New Orleans, Louisiana and the surrounding area.