On Katrina

Given the extreme physical conditions, the obvious logistical difficulties and the challenges of just being a human being and seeing what there is to see all along the Gulf Coast, some of the work being done off Katrina and the aftermath is awe-inspiring.

Here is but a small sample of some of the very best:

Scott Gold of the LAT, first person, walking around New Orleans:

Water is the enemy. Even now, it drips steadily into the lobby of my hotel. It gurgles up from storm drains, splashes against shattered storefronts and front doors when rescue trucks go by. It hides snakes, dead, bloated rats and, in the areas with the worst flooding, untold numbers of bloated bodies.

There is no air conditioning. There are no fans. There is no ice.

As journalists, we keep a wall between our emotions and our stories. I had been holding up fine until Wednesday evening, when I made my way through the masses at the Superdome and found a young mother. Her name was Tonisha Jones. She was 24 years old. Her daughter Justice is the same age as my daughter — 17 months.

Justice was perched on Tonisha's lap. She had chubby cheeks and pigtails and eyes like black pearls. I noticed that Tonisha was feeding her trail mix that emergency crews had handed out.

"You're really not supposed to let babies eat raisins," I blurted out.

Tonisha stared at me until I realized the profound folly of what I had said.

For a few minutes, I sat with them, as Justice happily popped in peanuts and raisins. The sun erupted through the holes in the roof left by Katrina, sending dazzling rays of light onto the field.

Then I went back to the hotel and cried, wondering what will become of all of these people, wondering about little Justice, and whether she will ever again have a place she can call home.

Ellen Barry of the LAT on a little boy with a big job:

The water wasn't going down and they had been living without light, food or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter arrived to pick them up, they were told to send the children first and that the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes. She and her neighbors had to make a quick decision.

It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send the children ahead.

P.J. Huffstutter of the LAT with a family in Gulfport:

The Sparkmans had one working car, a blue Mercury Sable with six gallons of gas. They had been saving the gas for emergencies. Though services were starting to return along the gulf, the uncertainty was maddening. A bank open for several hours today might be dark all day tomorrow. The gas station that pumped steadily yesterday might attract a line two miles long today — only to run dry by mid-morning.

Willie was not willing to risk their small supply of fuel to drive around on what might well be a fool's errand.

But this Salvation Army site sounded solid.

Breakfast, they all decided, would be worth one-sixth of a gallon.

Dan Barry of the NYT at the first rest stop in Texas:

One after another, the westward-bound buses pull off Interstate 10 and all but collapse at the Texas Travel Information Center here. Their doors sigh open to release the fetid smell of a devastated New Orleans: of urine and waste and mud; of days spent on rooftops, on bridge overpasses, in dark and dangerous concrete behemoths.

If despair carried an odor, it would be this.

Jodi Wilgoren of the NYT on a (sad) homecoming:

So the couple crossed the street that had become a river, and soon stood waist-deep inside the living room that had become a lake, with Stephen King novels, tennis balls, and a pink souvenir candle from Cape Cod floating around the furniture.

Peter Applebome of the NYT at a makeshift morgue:

After the wind, after the flood, after countless bodies are fished from muddy bayous or lifted off street corners or carried down from roofs or attics, the road ends here.

Dana Hedgpeth of the WP keeps it short:

Nevertheless, the cars, trucks and vans began lining up as early as 5 a.m. Friday outside Renovations, a family-run home improvement store and gas station in this small town of shrimpers about 70 miles southwest of New Orleans. A gallon of regular gas was $3.10. A nearby station had been charging $2.46 for regular and $2.91 for supreme late Thursday, but it ran out of fuel.

Brady Dennis of the SPT goes even shorter:

After a while, soldiers in camouflage showed up with Humvees and machine guns to knock on doors and make sure nobody got too close. Firefighters arrived with a tanker truck of water to keep the fire from spreading. The buildings burned to ashes.

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