I spent the last five days in Mississippi and Louisiana doing volunteer disaster relief work for Nechama: Jewish Response to Disaster http://www.nechama.org. As terrible as the destruction is on TV, seeing it first hand is even worse. I walked through a neighborhood in Ocean Springs, Mississippi and could only cry. Houses ripped from their concrete foundations and moved hundreds of feet inland. Boats dropped like seashells blocks from their former moorings. Homes cracked into multiple pieces. Teddy bears laying abandoned amidst the rubble.

Even in Hattiesburg, an hour's drive inland, the devastation was terrible. Although houses were not reduced to splinters in Hattiesburg, thousands of homes were destroyed from wind damage. Countless trees were uprooted, which many of them crashing down onto homes and opening up gaping holes in their walls and roofs. With the high heat and humidity of the area, mold quickly takes root and destroys everything soft in its path. The only cure is to rip out and discard everything that it touches, including wallboard, carpeting, furniture, books, clothes, etc.

And what will become of the people who once lived in the now destroyed homes? Hundreds of thousands are living in shelters and temporary shelters. Many will never return as they have nothing to return to. Will they find employment and rebuild their lives? My hope is that those who struggled to find employment in cities such as New Orleans will find rewarding positions in Houston, Baton Rouge, Jackson, and other cities. My fear is that we will treat these neighbors as we treated those who fled the dust bowl that was Oklahoma in the 1930's. We must not.