The news from New Orleans and other areas hit hard by Hurricane Katrina just keeps getting worse. Now it looks like it will be months before New Orleans will be habitable again. All along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana through Mississippi and into Alabama was hit hard, with storm surges in excess of 20 feet in some places, and of course flooding from rain and rivers overflowing. Thousands of people may be dead, once we get the final death toll. This may turn out to be the biggest natural disaster in the United States since the legenary 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

The emergency response by governmental agencies appears to be unable to keep up with the magnitude of the disaster. (And before you blame those crazy people for staying in the face of evacuation orders, my sister’s blog makes a good point — many of them had no means to get out.) Worse yet, it looks like many areas that were hardest hit were woefully underinsured. All this means that voluntary contributions are going to be critical. Give what you can now. One way to give is through the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s Gulf Coast Relief Fund. They have pledged to keep administrative costs below 5%, and they have people on the ground in the affected areas with local knowledge of wht needs to be done.

Nor is this problem going to go away any time soon. Maybe we should all start a move to give donations to rebuilding the Gulf Coast in lieu of half our Christmas presents this year. Or something.

One last suggestion: before you send your donation to the aid agency of your choice, see if your employer will match it. Carol’s employer will match her donations, so we will send in our donations in her name.

The news from down there is so bad that when we saw gas prices of $3.49 today, it just didn’t seem that important. At least we’re alive.