[ESIP-all] Katrina: Update on my family's situation.

[Richard Troy]

Hello All,

Unfortunately, things are not good. As you may have read some days ago, my
sister's home on the edge of Gulfport/Waveland, Mississippi was lost.
Unfortunately, so is my sister...

I'm the last of us who is known to have spoken with her. She called at
dusk on the evening of the first day Katrina came ashore from a pay phone
in Jackson, Alabama, to say she was driving a borrowed camper and had her
daughter, Heather Troy, with her, along with Heather's year old daughter,
Destiny. I know many of you have met Heather as I took care of her and
brought her to an ESIP meeting or two...

When she called, she said she was at a small truck stop which couldn't
pump fuel because there was no electrical power. She said she was very low
on fuel and wanted to continue to run from the storm. She said she was
also out of money, but that was a secondary concern. We called each other
several times while I contacted our father and arranged to have money
wired to her via Western Union. I urged her to stay put for the night
since she appeard not to be in flooding danger and she was at a known
location - and there'd be food/beverage, etc, at the truck stop. She said
she was afraid the camper would blow over in the wind.

Nobody has heard from them since. She didn't call me in the morning as she
promissed. The money hasn't been collected from Western Union. We've
contacted the police and other authorities and she's on the list so if any
aid workers help her, we'll get word.

...At least when I had them on the phone I had the foresight to also talk
to Heather and I told both of them I love them... Small comfort, that, but
in a situation like this, well, what can one say?

Meanwhile, my father's home is likely flooded, so he has driven from
Atlanta, where he happened by luck to be when Katrina came ashore, to his
brother's house in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. He's safe, though he
didn't bring with him any photographs or other valuables from his home as
he didn't know Katrina was coming when he left.

Also meanwhile, the city I grew up in, where my longest and best friends
are, where my heart yet remains, is undergoing a most painful injury. To
call it devastating seems pathetically under-stated. And there is so
prescious little that I can do to help...

Richard

-- 
Richard Troy, Chief Scientist
Science Tools Corporation
rtroy at ScienceTools.com, 510-567-9957, http://ScienceTools.com/