i meant to post this the other day, but didn't have time

since the original story i have read donations have been coming in for mr mccusker.

what happened to him and thousands of others was/is inexcusable. there is no reason it HAD to happen as it did. there is NO reason our nation didn't help them as it should have. katrina destroyed more than homes. instead of lending a hand, many (in our government) just spit on those that were treading water.

this is so very sad. this is but ONE story out of so many. those of us not in the gulf coast area have no idea (me included) how much devastation occured.

After Long Stress, Newsman in New Orleans Unravels

By SUSAN SAULNY
NEW ORLEANS, Aug. 9 — On the morning after Hurricane Katrina, when members of The Times-Picayune’s staff found themselves marooned in its flooded building here, John McCusker refused to join most of his colleagues in relocating to a remote newsroom in Baton Rouge.
After the building was evacuated, Mr. McCusker, a photographer for the paper, swam through muck while managing to keep his equipment dry and, from a kayak, captured some of the most harrowing images of the storm’s immediate aftermath.
Then, for months, he lived the misery he had been photographing, having lost his possessions, his family’s home and his entire neighborhood to the hurricane. On Tuesday, nearly a year after the storm, he seemed to snap.
In an episode that began as a traffic stop for erratic driving, the authorities say, Mr. McCusker was halted once, pinned a police officer between cars by backing up, then fled and drove into several cars and construction signs in the Uptown neighborhood before being stopped again and finally subdued with a Taser gun. In both stops, the police say, he begged officers to shoot him, telling them he did not have enough insurance money to rebuild his home in the Gentilly neighborhood and wanted to die.
“He was demanding it; he kept saying, ‘Just kill me, just kill me,’ ” said James Arey, commander of the negotiation team of the Police Department’s special operations division, who responded to the scene. ..........