If they can get news crews in, why can't they get a couple semis filled with bottled water. Get someone on the back with a bull horn and tell people there is plenty to go around and not to stampede, old, sick and young served first...

Because the scale is different. The semi has to get through 50 to 100 miles of "roads" carrying that water past OTHER people who want it. And some of those news crews have gotten to places no semi ever could as the "land" lays now.

This is not one small area. This is on a scale where people 40 or 50 miles away have scarcity already. Not water, but other things. There is miles and miles of land / water/ land /water. They are landing huge helicopters with water etc.

And so far, the guy with the bullhorn already got shot a few times. It looks a whole lot easier on tv when you only see the narrow area. This is an area that would be equivilant of South of Chicago all the way to the Wisconsin border that is covered with sea/ sewer water or debris.

The people will have to come OUT to the goods to sustain levels of supply.

I've been almost glued to the TV for this past 2 weeks. I knew that I would see individuals stepping into the breech! I'm dismayed by the inept response by the governmental agencies, but so heartened by the heroic stories I'm seeing. Dangerous waters, criminals, disease, shell shocked survivors are not stopping Americans from using their ingenuity and grit. Maybe Dunkirk wasn't such a poor example after all. I think when all this is over, the stories about the CEOs who chartered jets and flew in as well as the clerks on the lowest rung of the economic ladder who found a way to "borrow" gas from one car to start a bus, to the renegade bus driven by the 20 year old into Houston (bless Houstonians!) to the three kids from Duke who drove their car into NO will all demonstrate what I knew was true. Waiting for government agencies is NOT the only way, maybe not the best way to get help fast. I'm celebrating that I live in a world with a woman minister, blind, who wouldn't leave her dog!

I know that God is working with this pain to redeem it. Those who are giving a minute or a dollar, their sweat or their homes are being redeemed. If the 'sin' that the Taliban wanted to wipe out was the materialism of the developed world, then this storm is demonstrating that we are making amends for that.

Alberta today passed a 5 million dollar donation to Bush/Clinton funds. Our rig workers are likely down there by now. I know some churches are sending workers.

What I hope comes out of this is that the reminder ;we can plan, but human beings can't foresee everything. Old Tower of Babble story taught that. We are always going to need grit, ingenuity, courage and generosity. And I'm witnessing it every day now.
Americans and British have been my heros ever since my uncle fought for Canada (back when we didn't have a flag of our own! another post). I devoured the films and history books about the heroism of the WW11. However, the British at Dunkirk, and the Americans defeating Stalin by the food drop into East Berlin remain my pick for most awesome acts! Lessons to me; when there's a will, there's a way.

Hats off to all the NGOs, the individual CEOs, and the sung and unsung celebrities who found a car, a raft, a syringe and a backpack, a bus, a pair of arms, willing hands to fix this. That's where American shine. I hope that the rest of the world sees this. It will paint the contrast against which the governments' mistakes must be placed. I'm not bashing government organizations right now. They are made up of mere humans. Human error exists. I hope all our local, provincial/state and federal governments will learn from this.

We know about E-coli from our Walkerton disaster. I wonder if the CDC has asked Ottawa for pointers learned from that event.