Hoping for the real story

A lot has been written and tossed about the Internet following Hurricane Katrina. Its focus has been a lot of things, from outrage to blame, though much of it has had little to do with the real story of Katrina's aftermath.

Reputable sources like the New York Times, CNN and even Fox News have roasted the administration for a sluggish national response to a growing disaster, and much of that criticism is well deserved. Administration officials from the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the White House to the Defense Department have defended the lag with claims of state responsibility, but it's obvious they dropped the ball.

But this is not the real story.

These same outlets have said the flooding in New Orleans could have been prevented, but the war in Iraq and Bush tax cuts drained money from those projects. There's something to those claims, with a pre-9/11 FEMA report listing a hurricane in New Orleans as one of the top three most deadly potential catastrophes in the U.S., topping a terrorist attack in New York and just behind a major earthquake in San Francisco. In 2002 the Army Corps of Engineers chief resigned after he criticized the Bush administration for cutting funding for projects, particularly long-needed flood control projects in New Orleans.

But this is also not the real story.

The real story of Katrina goes a little something like this:

"Looking for Charles Kreher: Please send word to Victoria that you are OK"

"CLAYTON BURCH CALL HOME: Clay call home to st. louis to your moms house ...its listed in FENTON mo for R> Barry..... let us know you are ok. We love you and want to know you are ok.. Love you"

"Hi everyone Lionel Adams was found in all places Florida. I knew he had to be unconscious since we hadnt heard from him. The hospital told me there were more NOLA patients from Touro."

The above quotes come from the New Orleans version of the craigslist.com, a popular free classifieds-type listing site that is now providing an invaluable service for people separated by catastrophe, flooding and evacuation.

While much of New Orleans is under water and even more of the South is completely without power, it's foolish to assume this site is helping at the epicenter of the crisis. Forums like Craigslist are a window into the suffering away from the puerile waters of Canal Street, showing the hopes and fears of the unknown that Katrina has forced on so many people.

The prevailing theme of most of the listings is one of sheer confusion - in the shake of those fleeing and those left behind, there was

no one keeping tabs on people. In most cases, especially for those too poor or too stubborn to escape New Orleans early, escape was not planned for as much as it was a mad dash for the nearest high ground. With the nearly five day wait for any meaningful relief efforts to be mobilized, those stuck in the New Orleans muck had no way to reach those waiting for them.

For those of us who are fortunate enough to be outside Katrina's sphere of devastation, these listings offer a sad, chilling, but sometimes hopeful insight into the tragedy that the unavoidably sensationalized television and newspaper coverage can't provide. They are the pleas of a mother desperate for news of her son. They are the sister-in-law looking for her sister's husband. They are the family friend in Florida who found his neighbor's kid unconscious in a nearby ICU after he was airlifted from Louisiana. These are the too-strange-to-be-fiction stories that don't play well on television, but that anyone can relate to simply because every relationship imaginable is represented.

As of the writing of this column, there were almost 600 missing persons listings for New Orleans on Sept. 6 alone. This is but a sliver of the number of people missing, injured, dead or just plain affected by Katrina, but it's indicative of the network of support that is coming together following this catastrophe.

For me, the Craigslist missing person pleas have made the catastrophe more real. I feel in reading, watching and even working in the media with its constant over-the-top coverage has, as shallow as this sounds, desensitized me to the emotional impact of tragedies like this. The authentic and simple words of the people who really have been affected offer a version of reality that can sound more desperate, but at the same time these real people offer more real hope.