A friend of mine lives in New Orleans and has started sending me these emails. I am posting it as is, with personal information editted out.

It's Thursday morning and I finally figured out how to email my entire address book. So, I wanted to let you know that I'm fine and my family (including our two cats and our fish) is fine. We evacuated early (4 am) Sunday morning and have been in Baton Rouge since, staying with friends. We know our house was fine yesterday (two broken windows, no water) but we're not sure what happened once the levees breached (we know the street now is flooded and don't think the water is that deep).

Our original plan was to stay in Baton Rogue until next week (when we believed that we would be allowed back into New Orleans) and then figure the situation out. Today's news makes it clear that the city will be shut down for a while and that that New Orleans' citizenry would not be let back in anytime soon. So, our cuplan We're leaving this morning to drive up to State College, Pennsylvania (home until I was sixteen) and figure our next steps from there. We plan to take two days to drive to Chapel Hill (spend a day or so there) and then go on to State College. I should be accessible on my cell phone (which just started working again) or by email (NOTE: The Tulane email address is NOT working).

We were without power until today so I've spent this morning fixed to the images of the devastation. It reminds me of a civil war in a jungle, somewhere in poor Africa. I don't know whether to be upset and cry or to be angry with the lack of preplanning and the muddling of the rescue, post-storm effort and the violence that people have resorted to. So, as I find the situation slightly overwhelming, my priorities are (1) making sure my family is okay, (2) making sure all my friends are okay and (3) doing something to make sure New Orleans and its people survive and hopefully thrive sometime in the future. As I watch the pictures, it seems like if we as community don't do something, our people and city might be lost.