Hurricane Rita I was scheduled to preach at First Baptist Church DeRidder, LA Sunday morning. But as of this morning, those plans have been cancelled because of Hurricane Rita. DeRidder is my hometown. I spoke with my parents this morning, and they are going to stay there until the storm is over. My dad is the principle of Singer High School, and FEMA has just made his school into a shelter for those fleeing to the north from south Louisiana. So he has to stay in any case to supervise that facility. DeRidder is far enough inland that it should not get the destructive winds and flooding that will hammer…

We passed this police car which was abandoned right in front of the Convention Center. It’s dilapidated condition stands a symbolic reminder of the inadequacy of the force that was left to guard the Convention Center when nearly 20,000 people were stranded there. As I wrote in my previous post, I spent the majority of my time in New Orleans working at the Convention Center. The rubble left behind there that I witnessed told a terrible and tragic story. The thousands of people who were turned away from the shelter at the Superdome were directed to the Convention Center just ten blocks away. The place descended into a dark hole…

Preparing food for the Salvation Army Mobile Canteens at 3:30am. Photo by Josh Ramsey. We parked our Canteen truck right next to the tents where military vehicles were dropping off and processing evacuees in front of the now infamous Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans. This was the site that saw thousands of New Orleans residents stranded without food and bathrooms for days after the levees broke. It became a den of misery and lawlessness. A Military Policeman informed me that when the army arrived, they found dead bodies inside the Convention Center—bodies that had been brutalized, some apparently mugged and others raped. It is places like these…

Band of Cobelligerents: Denny, Mark (SBC), George, and Mike (Salvation Army). These are the four who manned our Canteen truck. Denny and Mark are from Dallas, TX; George and Mike are from Ohio. It was a real pleasure working with these guys. The filth and stench outside the Convention Center was unbelievable. Terrence and his family came through the line at our Canteen truck. Terrence was able to hold on to his job after losing his home and all his belongings in the hurricane. Now he, his wife Raquel, and his three children (Caitlyn, 11yrs; Corey, 11yrs; and Cayla, 7yrs.) have made Terrence’s bus their new home. USS Harry Truman…

These are two signs I found on a building on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. The sign on the left is the initial warning to looters that the owner left. The sign on the right is the update on his status as of September 4. Evacuees being unloaded from a military personell truck near our Mobile Canteen unit.

Dear Readers, I won’t be blogging for the next few days because I’m going to New Orleans. I’m leading a group of students from the Criswell College to a staging area in Baton Rouge where we will link up with Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief. We will man a Salvation Army Mobile Canteen and will be responsible for distributing 300,000 meals per day in New Orleans. The last several days, I’ve been blogging a lot about the political side of the Hurrican Katrina tragedy because I think the news coverage has been reflexively condemning of federal authorities. I am happy to say that I think that that tide is turning.…