Bearing witness: Reports from the newsroom

A friend of mine who works in the local newsroom sent this e-mail message to some of her friends a few days ago in an attempt to deal with some of the events of a tough week. The events have allowed festering thoughts to come to the surface and the frayed nerves allow a stronger reaction. But people are upset, and it's a frustrating situation all around.

It's been an emotional week in the news biz.... it's heartbreaking to bear witness day after day, story after story, picture after picture, to that mess down in the gulf, and not feel shame and disgust at the unnecessariness of it all -- or much of it.

I'm against rampant group emailing, and you'll note I RARELY pass along things but I am making an exception, because I think everyone needs to understand the depth of the emotion this tragedy has generated. And I'm not talking about a hurricane.

Did you hear Rush Limbaugh was criticizing people who stayed? He said if they had no car or money, they should have WALKED out of New Orleans. In the dark, in the middle of a torrential downpour, with their babies and their grandmas, i guess. What a horrible, vicious
man he is.

All I can say is, when everyone is safe (which astonishingly is still not the case, a WEEK later) and the immediate crisis is past, there had better be hell to pay in high places. If the RIGHT people aren't held accountable for this, and quickly, and with serious consequences, I fear there will be turmoil in this country for years to come.

My newsroom friend also included an e-mail from a friend, a former reporter, a black woman who lives in Houston and is going to school down there. I've edited it to some essential points.

As for Katrina ... it's heartbreaking, infuriating and just plain horrible. Houston is trying to deal with as best it can. They've shut the Astrodome down. It's too crowded. Mayor White is asking Houstonians to open up their homes to house people.

My aunt has opened up one of her rental houses and my family is gathering clothes to drop off at the donation centers. Our church has been feeding breakfast to the victims; my cousin's parish is feeding and another local church is a temporary shelter.

I find myself waffling between anger, fear and despair. I am fearful because the people are so angry and frustrated and desperate. Desperate people do desperate things when they don't feel like there's anything to lose. We've had some reports of looting and vandalism but HPD has been working overtime to curtail some of that.

I am so angry because this, at least to me, is a prime example of the class and race problem in this country. There is no reason Charity Hospital should still have patients inside, while Tulane, which is across the street, has been evacuated for days. No reason, except that Charity is the public hospital for indigent patients, most of whom are black. Tulane is a private hospital.

If this disaster had struck in Martha's Vineyard, the Hamptons, or Kennebunkport and rich, white vacationers were stranded there, those people would have been rescued the day after Katrina blew over, without any public prompting or outrage. But because it is New Orleans, where 2/3 of the residents are black and more than 20 percent live in poverty, they've been made to live among the feces, urine, stagnant water risking disease. They are thirsty, hungry and lived among decaying dead bodies throughout the convention center.

This event has caused many new discussions, and will have lasting implications more far-reaching than perhaps any other we have known.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.