Current Events: Hurricane Katrina & New Orleans

I have never felt as afraid for the country as I have over the last week. While experiencing a wide range of dreadful emotions to the story of New Orleans' submersion and aftereffects, more than anything else the events haved left me feeling frightened in a vast variety of ways.--------------- Speaking solely in the capacity of an observer, the biggest question right now is what have we not yet seen? Although I have been following this story obsessively, reading dozens of articles online and viewing hours of covergage on TV, we have not even seen pictures of some of the worst-sounding reports (marauding bands of looters, acts of violence, the conditions inside the Superdome and convention center). Despite all the coverage that one can follow, without being there you can't feel the heat, smell the filth, see the dead bodies in plain view and hear the cries of thousands of people who have lost everything. I cannot stop thinking of what it would be like for my loved ones to experience such tribulations, or what it was like in the Superdome with 20,000 other people, no a/c, no necessities, no sanitation, no security and all in the total darkness (the "Sewerdome" term is at once darkly humorous and sickeningly evocative). ------------------------------------- A complete breakdown in organized society is terrifying. The ordeals of the surivors are unimaginable. That this happened in America is disgraceful.