I can't even begin to wrap my head around the devastation that the City of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are facing -- the flooding, the sheer loss of lives. Now they face waterborne disease, looting, and chaos. The hundreds of thousands who have been displaced from their homes, seeking refuge as far as 400 miles to the north, in Memphis, TN - where will they go? Some of them have nothing to go home to. It's so, so sad:

"At least in San Francisco [after the earthquake and fire of 1906], people were able to begin rebuilding immediately, sometimes using the rubble left behind after the fire. In New Orleans, rebuilding can't begin until the levees are repaired; the water has been pumped out of the city; and sufficient electricity, communications and sewage disposal have been restored. This may take weeks or even months. Even then it is possible that some parts of this nearly 300-year-old, below-sea-level, at-risk city may never be rebuilt at all...." (from a Washington Post Editorial)

Here's a link to the Network for Good, with numerous organizations working on disaster relief, in case you're looking for some way to help. My heart is with them.