Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Dec. 14, 2005

It's a Third World in our back yard

Just last Saturday a registered nurse from Summertown wrote a letter to the editor of the Nashville paper. She wrote that for the last two months she has spent a total of four weeks traveling back and forth to the coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi assessing people's needs. These trips were taken in between her full-time nursing job.

She had just returned from the area around Pass Christian, MS where the water surge flooded five miles inland. It was one of the worst-hit areas and people are still living in tents and trailers and they don't have enough food. The Red Cross had been providing two meals a day to these folks, but their last meal was served on November 30.

A man from Florida is trying to fill the need and is feeding 1,500 people a day in a parking lot. This nurse is very disturbed that none of this has been in the news and she is trying to make the public aware of the need.

Our son responded to the call for volunteers to help with the clean-up in the Gulfport and Biloxi region made by Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse organization. He drove from his Ohio home to the Gulf Coast to work the first week in November.

He began to realize what lay ahead when he stopped at a Cracker Barrel in Mississippi to eat. His food was served on paper plates. I had read that many of the New Orleans restaurants were using paper plates as they struggled to save their businesses. Some used china and they were paying dishwashers $10 or more an hour.

Tim and his fellow workers were housed in a church youth camp located on the Gulf beach which was off limits because of pollution. Their day began with a devotional period followed by a hearty breakfast. As they headed to work they were given sack lunches to sustain them through a day of hard labor.

Because the spotlight had been shining on New Orleans, it was a shock to the volunteers to see how bad things were here. Tim owns an electrical contracting business and he has experienced bad situations, but nothing like this. His team spent their days taking out huge old trees ravaged by the high winds and trying to bring order to the devastated neighborhoods.

As evening fell they returned for a 6:30 supper and shortly to bed in bunk beds. Tim said most of all he missed his own bed. As he told us after he returned he was amazed how people unknown to each other before they arrived became such hard working units so fast. It was a sobering experience but one to remember.

In her letter the nurse wrote, "This is a Third World situation in the United States of America. How can we forget what is in our back yard?"

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday. She may be reached at ebrush@frontiernet.net