Further outrage

Help us now!


The Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald

The coastal communities of south Mississippi are desperately in need of an unprecedented relief effort.

We understand that New Orleans also was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, but surely this nation has the resources to rescue both that metropolitan area and ours. Whatever plans that were in place to deal with such a natural disaster have proved inadequate. Perhaps destruction on this scale could not have been adequately prepared for.

But now that it has taken place, no effort should be spared to mitigate the hurricane's impact. The essentials - ice, gasoline, medicine - simply are not getting here fast enough.

We are not calling on the nation and the state to make life more comfortable in South Mississippi; we are calling on the nation and the state to make life here possible.

While the flow of information is frustratingly difficult, our reporters have yet to find evidence of a coordinated approach to relieve pain and hunger or to secure property and maintain order.

People are hurting and people are being vandalized.

Yet where is the National Guard, why hasn't every able-bodied member of the armed forces in South Mississippi been pressed into service?

On Wednesday reporters listening to horrific stories of death and survival at the Biloxi Junior High School shelter looked north across Irish Hill Road and saw Air Force personnel playing basketball and performing calisthenics.

When our reporters asked why these young men were not being used to help in the recovery effort, they were told that it would be pointless to send military personnel down to the beach to pick up debris.

Litter is the least of our problems. We need the president to back up his declaration of a disaster with a declaration that every man and woman under his command will do whatever is necessary to deal with that disaster.