Thank you all for your kind prayers, thoughts, and help. gumbykat: What's happening is that folks are scared and the panic factor is coming into play. This is going to be felt probably everywhere, but particularly in the SE US. Gas is $7 a galllon in Dallas, $6 in Atlanta...which effects everything else...food prices going to rise, that sort of thing. We need to expect to be pushed out of our comfort zones for a while to come. kansas: Yep, JoeyDude is from N.O. I can only pray that he got out in time. I work for the MS highway dept. and was involved in the evacuation Sat and Sun before the storm. The authorities in N.O. were very clear...LEAVE!!! NOW!!! So if someone was able, they did. We had estimated traffic of 1.5 million cars on US59 Sunday before the storm. fractalinda: You go girl!!! You are on the right track, local churches being probably the best practical way to help. Needed are the very basics: drinking water, and more dinking water, and oh yeah, did I mention water? Plus non-perishable food, diapers, clothes, etc. Just imaging if you suddenly had nothing...I mean nothing...what would you need? That's where most folks are at. mountmous: You're right...it's going to take months for us locally, years for folks farther south to recover. But today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better than today. Again, thank you all, continue to pray, help if you can, remember us next week, and the week after, and the week after... G