What you have seen on the news coverage of the hurricane disaster is nothing like the real thing. I spent most of the holiday weekend in Waveland, MS where my mother and step-father still own a home (about 1 mile from the beach!). While they were EXTEMELY blessed to still have their home standing, many of their closest friends and neighbors have literally lost everything.

I went down there from Dallas, TX last Thursday morning (I finally heard from them after not knowing for three days whether they were even alive) with a pickup full of food, gasoline for generators, propane for cooking and other miscellaneous supplies. However selfish it might make me, I brought those items down for my family's use only. There is far more need spread across far more people there than my meager checking account can supplant.

In the brief time I looked around, I saw destruction on a scale I have never imagined. It truly looked like a brutal war had been fought in my tiny little southern home town. Entire neighborhoods full of homes were reduced to piles of wood. Large trees were bent, snapped, uprooted, and splintered in groups of dozens. My own brother's home (thankfully rented) was destroyed with only the roof intact and sitting on the ground.

Most of the people who are still in the area as well as the refugees who have been forced out of their homes have had their lives ruined. They have lost homes, jobs, clothing, personal belongings, everything. These are not people from a foreign country, but Americans like you and me (well most of us, since many of us here are also from the UK).

If anyone is interested in seeing some of the photos I took while there, go to my family website at www.patrickandlinda.com later this evening. I will try to get some of the photos posted to a new page.

I'd like to know if there's any possibility of us as a group putting together a contribution for the Salvation Army or the Red Cross. If not, I would like to implore each of you to donate whatever you can to whatever charitable organization you think will do the most good with it.

Daniel, would it be possible for you to set up a PayPal account or something similar where we could all e-mail a few bucks and then have you send that to one of the big charities?