Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Very Scary Thought

The other day I heard on the news that the City of Baton Rouge had taken in 250,000 evacuees from hurricane Katrina, literally flooding the town with new faces. Now we have another hurricane, Rita, chugging towards the Gulf Coast. Floridians (and those in Galveston, TX) are already taking precautions since it looks like it will touch the Keys first. After that, it will head into warm gulf waters, increasing up to a possible Level 3 storm. Less than a month ago, New Orleans was flattened. if this storm hits ANYWHERE in Louisiana, we are going to have bigger nightmare. Now I realize that Baton Rouge is not directly on the coast, but if the storm hits near there, that town may have major problems. Can you imagine a town that has doubled in size and also facing a disaster? Can you imagine the panic? Can you imagine more people hitting the road ... heading to Texas and Arkansas?

On a biblical note, I have heard many Christians say that they think that this was a message from God for New Orleans to clean up its act. If this storm hits anywhere in Louisiana, I bet a few more people are going to think the same thing. Scary thought.

My prayer is this. I want the storm to fizzle out. Degrade into a tropical depression, turn north over the panhandle of Florida and then head back out to sea. I will keep praying this. We do not need any more destruction in the gulf.

Katrina was the fourth most powerful storm in recorded history. A hurricane hit Galveston, TX almost 100 years to the day that Katrina hit New Orleans. Galveston lost over 6000 people and 1/3 of the town was destroyed. Those figures have made it the deadliest storm in recorded history.

So far the death toll for Katrina has been rather low compared to what was predicted. Thank God.

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