Katrina Through the Eyes of a Helpless Bystander

I never thought I'd live the day when I'd hate to be in Seattle. But I tell you, it is infuriating right now. Hurricane Katrina devastates thousands of lives thousands of miles away. At hundreds of miles an hour Hurricane Reda speeds through the Atlantic/Gulf of Mejico, preparing to do much the same thing. The double threat--two times the worst natural disaster in our country's history.
AND I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT!
You must understand this is a terrible blow to me. I am a girl who is used to working--and earning--what I strive for. I set my heart on acting and 6 months later passed an audition. I wanted to write a series and am now working on the fourth installment. There, I was up against fate. Now, I am up against Mother Nature--a force which I try to respect by saving energy, even though our president doesn't necessarily. Do you understand?
I keep thinking--how can I help? Clothes? Not the biggest need. Money? Don't got it, sorry. And now, when I attempt to start a food drive with my friends, my stupid principal goes and asks us if there's REALLY A NEED. Why don't I print out the homepage of Second Harvest and shove it in his face??
I read this newspaper article recently: it said, in short--20,000-40,000 ppl were crammed inside of the (american) football stadium in New Orleans. Young women were admitting being raped by gangsters. Racist fights break out every day, and urine and shit were everywhere. People fainted from the very stench of it and had to be carted away.
Two of the grossest stories I've heard: One, police got into a wrecked hospital and found a ton of elderly folks lying there, dead. The nurses and doctors had thought they would be safer on their feeders and fled the hospital without them. Two: a bunch of dolphins who were flushed out of their aquarium were tugged out to sea, but as soon as they could fought their way through starvation and debris back to the city they were born in--a city where all was destruction.
Phew.
I'm glad I got that off my chest. I was really angry at my principal for delaying our progress on the food drive, and really mad at our government (perhaps injustly) for not providing the equal resources for relief for everyone, black or white, poor or rich, who has been hit. But there still is hope. I will, with as little physical force as I can keep back, show Mr. Princi the documents he wants. And the dolphins were taken in by kind owners. (sigh...)
If you read this far, good for you. You deserve a medal by all accounts!! Trivia: from where does the word "disaster" originate?
TFATF,
Ahaneen