The Church and Katrina

Hurricane Katrina is turning into a bigger disaster than (most) anyone expected. I am having a hard time even comprehending the misery, lawlessness, and hopelessness of those hardest hit. If I had any extra money, I would send it to the Church's humanitarianism program. Bradley came across this interesting article about the church's response to Katrina thus far. Some tidbits:

President Christensen said the Baton Rouge temple was undamaged, though it lost its power for a period of time. Of the 43 buildings in the five stakes of his region, most of buildings sustained little or slight damage, except for those buildings in the areas hardest hit—the New Orleans Stake and the Slidell Stake. Because communications has been nearly impossible with those regions, the fate of many of those buildings is still uncertain.
We received a report that some members were stranded on the west bank of New Orleans and that President Scott Conlin has organized a caravan of vans to see if he can go pick them up.
This stake has an automated phone system so that the stake president put in a prerecorded message on Saturday and again on Sunday morning that rang into 1700 homes. The message was to evacuate the city. If they weren’t leaving their homes, they were given an 800 number so they could report where they were going to me.

If only everyone could be so lucky.

When the Church saw the storm danger, “simultaneously we sent supplies to be pre-positioned in those locations to be close to the needs.”
Bishop Navo had one central message when Brother Lilly handed the phone to him, “ I am so grateful for the Church. I am grateful that Salt Lake had supplies on the way before the hurricane even hit. When you are involved in a catastrophe of this magnitude, you get a whole new picture of the services of the Church.”

The Church's website also reports that all missionaries are safe and accounted for--they were evacuated before the storm.

I've also posted some thoughts about the chaos and anarchy in New Orleans in our political blog, Hot Blava. For the post about the case for well-armed citizens, click here. For some links that I have found informative and interesting, click here.