Gustav is spinning, but you can counter it

I've been thinking about my friend Donna all morning, since I passed through an Austin hotel lobby with Fox News blaring its guesses about Gustav's path and power and churning the waters of worry. The storm is two days away, but the spin is already thumping at America's right-wing TV nuthouse. "The federal aid is ready," sez the hucksters, with 7,000 National Guard troops "being convoyed in." It sounds like a lot, but that means a bunch of guys riding buses, not bumping along in the back of big trucks like an old WWII movie. Not much help for a swath of LA as big as the target area.

Donna has made a life for herself in Austin after having a beloved multi-generation house swept away during Katrina. Her folks go back many decades in New Orleans, and being a cultural anthropologist and a bang-up writer polishing a book on that storm, I feel as if I know the place she has lost better than anywhere except maybe my hometown of Toledo, right on the shores of Lake Erie. We never got anything but tornadoes up there; scary, but nothing like having the Gulf of Mexico wash ashore, or a lake bust through levees, to destroy so many homes and take so many lives.

Donna has tips on how to counter the Gustav spin. It seems as noble a task as anything electoral. Please consider helping. She says:

Hi Austin Friends:

Well, we’ve got something ugly in the Gulf named Gustav and, unfortunately, it seems to be heading to LA. Austin will likely be seeing evacuees from south Louisiana and possibly even the Texas gulf coast. I’ve gotten involved in volunteering and am sending out the following info for any of ya’ll who might like to help out. I will most likely be working in a Red Cross shelter, as I attended a RC shelter management course this morning.

Here goes:

1. To volunteer for the Red Cross and receive general information about volunteering in Austin, call 512-928-4271 or e-mail Mario Chapa (mchapa@centex.redcross.org) or Kim Landry (klandry@centex.redcross.org)

2. The following info was sent by Amy BeVille Elder, M.Div., Executive Director of the Texas Interagency Interfaith Disaster Response (TIDR). If you know of a church community that would like to get involved, they should contact Amy.

TIDR has a limited list of contacts for Houses of Worship; we need more.  These persons serve as a Point of Contact in times of emergency and disaster.  If Austin should open shelters, and should the shelter manager have a need which the neighborhood faith community might be able to meet, then we need a Disaster Contact Person (DCP) that we can call, day or night.  We would like all Houses of Worship to give us a phone number which we can use should a specific need arise.  The kinds of things we can imagine might be, a battery for a hearing aid, a cot so an older person doesn't have to sleep on the floor, diapers for a little one, etc.

Regards,
Amy
work: 512.458.8848 cell: 512.627.5771

I’m now on Amy’s mailing list, but if the-you-know-what-hits-the-fan in the next few days, I’ll be hard to reach. If so, you could contact the TX Interagency Interfaith Group yourself at the number above, for info on helping.

3. Finally, Donna Bonner, 512-796-3959 — if you give a call, I’ll answer any questions to which I know the answers, although I must warn I’m sort of busy right now taking calls from freaked out Louisians so I may not pick up right away. wesaymerci@yahoo.com is also a good way to reach me.

Tom O'Meara, a writer/rider friend of mine, is working on recruiting volunteers to help in the Gulf Coast diaspora/evacuation. He's at tom.omeara@sbcglobal.net, and says

Our friends from the Gulf Coast are on the move again and will need our help early next week. The local response is well organized by Texas Interfaith Disaster Response and the Red Cross, but I know there will be opportunities for all of us to contribute to the effort.
 
I am also sure that many of you already participate in communities that are planning their own responses. Please let me know about those so I can make a good report tomorrow.
 
I am meeting with some of the community leaders tomorrow morning to find out how different community groups will be called on to respond. If you are interested in participating in this effort, please let me know.

If worry and dread tries to consume you, be still and just let today's moment be with you — not yesterday that is lost and gone, or tomorrow with its uncertain events. We are okay now, and so are our loved ones who aren't on Haiti or in Cuba. I try this power-of-now all the time, since I'm a future-look kind of fellow. (Thus, my futuristic fiction.)