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You have all undoubtedly read a handful of articles concerning the devastation and aftermath of hurricane Katrina. I’ve refrained from posting anything until now due to the fact that I myself am still wading through hundreds of feeds ranging from journalistic views to personal accounts of the event. This recent Seattle Times article paints a grizzly image of the conditions in the Superdome.

“We pee on the floor. We are like animals,” Taffany Smith, 25, said as she cradled her 3-week-old son, Terry. [...] Baby supplies are running low; one mother said she was given two diapers and told to scrape them off when they got dirty and use them again. At least two people, including a child, have been raped as the arena darkened at night. At least three people have died, including one man who jumped 50 feet to his death, saying he had nothing left to live for. [...] There is no sanitation. The stench is overwhelming. The city’s water supply, which had held up since Sunday, gave out early yesterday, and toilets in the Dome became inoperable and began to overflow. [...] “You have to fend people off constantly,” she said. “You have to fight for your life. I wake up in the morning, and the first thing I say is: ‘Where are my babies? Is everyone here?’ “

A few related links:

// American Red Cross – Donate directly to the Red Cross Relief Fund
// Katrina Relief Auction – The Flickr community is responding to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina with the Katrina Relief Auction Group raising funds for American Red Cross Emergency Relief.
// Anarchy in the USA – It’s strange to see that the USA is not capable to handle the impact of Katrina. There is no water, no food, no medicine and no nothing! People are looting shops, fighting and shooting at each other and the police.
// New Orleans evacuations under way – Sept 1, 2005 – The first of New Orleans’ evacuees began arriving in Texas early Thursday as the Gulf Coast began to grasp the magnitude of what President Bush called “one of the worst natural disasters in our nation’s history.”
// Satellite Imagery of New Orleans – Satellite images of the city before and after Hurricane Katrina and flood-related damage. Click thumbnails for larger views.
// Technorati Tag: Hurricane Katrina – Hurricane Katrina on Technorati

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the south.