STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Special Treat ??“ Sharon Bryant

Sept 7, 2005? 

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? May God Bless This Nation

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I would never have dreamed I'd live to see a week like this past one has been.?  People pouring into our area from Mississippi, Louisiana and coastal Alabama. ?  Local people opening their homes to families who are left homeless from Hurricane Katrina.?  Children's Hospital in Birmingham have some of the littlest victims in their care.?  Every hotel and motel is booked with folks from just south of us.

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I thought what we had strike our area was bad Monday night, but after our power came back on Wednesday and I saw our television and the horrendous damage covering the southern coastal towns, I like so many, could not believe it happened.?  Yet no one believed a category 2 hurricane would turn into a 5 the way Katrina did.

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So many in Alabama are doing everything they can do to help.?  Today my husband offered his services to drive a tractor trailer into the "war zone" as we are calling it from here.?  We donated 18? cases of wet wipes and I am giving a load of stuffed animals for the little ones.?  These people have nothing but the clothes on their back.

Just today, NBC set up a drop off point in Birmingham and by the 5:00 news this evening, the amount of water, diapers, toiletries, sheets, pillows, and everything the victims need was unbelievable.?  One man wrote out a check in the amount of $20,000.00.

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We have our local civic centers which? are housing victims.?  We have churches? that are making room to take in families.?  Not only do all the people who are coming into my area need help, we also need to think of all those who have lost their jobs, their work places, and everything they owned, who are still stranded on coastal towns.?  We can only imagine.?  But like I told someone today, a category 4 or 5 tornado can do the same kind of damage anywhere in this country that this hurricane has done.

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In all my 59 years, this is the worst I've ever seen.?  I thought hurricane Andrew was bad when it struck Florida, and hurricane Betsy in the 60's.?  Then Camille when it hit the coast.?  But this one.......this one was different.?  It grew so quickly and became so massive,? very little? could survive in the fury of its path.

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Today a man walked into my work place and said to me, "Did you notice how when Katrina was coming into the gulf, it suddenly took a sharp degree in turn and headed for New Orleans?"?  I told him yes, I'd been watching because we knew in our area, had it been just 20 more miles east than it was, we were in for serious trouble in my central area of Alabama.?  He then said, "Bush had something to do with this."?  I looked at him and said, "What?"?  He stated that Bush created this storm to hit Louisiana so he could allow the gas prices to sky rocket.?  For a moment, I wasn't sure what to say to him, but my temper got the best of me and I said, "Are you stupid or what??  No one can make a hurricane happen.?  No one can direct one and say to it, "Head for New Orleans."?  He said, "Oh, you watch and see, the proof will come out and you'll find out this President we have created this whole mess."?  I just shook my head thinking, there are all kinds in this world.

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The one thing that has upset me is the slowness in getting aid down to the gulf.?  We got aid to the Tsunami victims across a whole ocean faster than we got it to a state in our own nation.?  It proved to me, in the event of another disaster, this country is not equipped to handle another disaster.?  When I saw that the Navy was sending out three ships with supplies from Norfolk, Va to the gulf, I thought of how long it would take for them to get there.?  I have old movie films taken during Viet Nam when the 7th Naval fleet was on their way overseas and they were getting supplies at sea.?  How helicopters with large nets lowered the supplies on top side.? ?  I told my husband, "Why don't they get helicopters to get some of those supplies off those ships that will take days to get to the gulf and victims, and get it in there faster to them?"?  He just shook his head and said, "I don't know."

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Many American's are asking the same question.?  Why did it take so long for help to arrive in our own country which is a lot closer than where we shipped things to the Tsunami victims??  I at one point, felt that perhaps we are more caring for other countries than our own.?  And I know the outrage of the victims in New Orleans as they sat day after day without water or food.?  Dying from dehydration.?  I can only imagine being in that type of situation.

I know there has been looting, we've all seen that.?  I know there are some that no matter what you do to help, they don't respect that, but I also know there are thousands who need help and want it.?  Not everyone is a looter.?  I felt bad for the couple from Scotland vacationing in New Orleans when Katrina struck.?  They are beside themselves with worry and fright over what is going to happen to them. because as of today, they are stranded.

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Some victim? families that are now in my area were interviewed on television.?  The kids are taking it hard.?  Being in a strange city, among strangers, wanting to return to their homes and not having a home to return to.?  Some cry and say they just want to go back home.?  It's heart wrenching.

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The whole thing is heart wrenching.?  Families losing everything they have.?  Families ripped apart.?  Husbands and wives separated.?  People searching for family members under mounds of rubble.?  It reminds me so much of the category 4 tornado that struck my area just a few years back.?  It leveled everything in it's path and took houses and made them look like toothpicks piled up.?  That was the year I told my husband we needed a tornado shelter, which he built that summer.

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For anyone who has ever been in a hurricane, you know the fury of one.?  You know the scene afterwards and you know the lives it can destroy.?  I thought when I was just hours ahead of Hugo trying to make it back home, I had seen all I ever hoped to with a hurricane when I was in Baton Rouge when Hugo began to stir up the waters and I packed up and headed north.?  I thought last summer when Francis and Ivan came through my area perhaps I'd seen it all.?  But Katrina has been the worst I've ever seen.? 

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I hope everyone in this country who can afford to do anything for the victims, does.?  It is unbelievable to know a whole city can be destroyed.?  Towns which once were vacation spots now gone.?  Flattened with the fury of a wall of water and a ferocious wind.?  When it reached us, hour after hour we listened to howling winds and pelting rains.?  It seemed it would never stop.?  Into the night when you can't see anything, not knowing what is happening outside your home, you get a sick feeling in your stomach.?  And now they (news) tell us another storm named "Maria" is brewing out there.?  We are all watching shaking our heads in disbelief hoping it does not come near the gulf area.

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My heart goes out to anyone who was on the gulf when Katrina came ashore.

May God Bless this Nation

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Sharon Bryant

1946 @bellsouth.net

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About Me:

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? I am Sharon Bryant,? 59 years old and reside in Alabama.

I lost my child in 1977 when he was five and I write
articles on bereavement often.

I am a chocolate/candy maker and also a wood crafter and knitter.

I am married to a wonderful man, and have two remaining children, a daughter 25,
Amy, and a second son, Randy, age 22.

My main goal in life is to help those who
have lost a child. My website is: www.angelsremembered.tk