Not only is Houston not New Orleans, we're apparently not Dallas either.
My mother just got back from the astrodome, where she's been working food service. The Houston churches got together, and they've each pledged to provide all the food and volunteers for a certain number of meals. (People are moving into garage apartments, spare houses, and empty apartments around town so fast that the massive overflow -- there's almost more volunteers than residents in parts of "Reliant City" -- is soon to be redirected to places scattered around town.) My mother reported that she was pleasantly surprised by how organized everything was, how smoothly everything ran, and how, although tiring, it was not in the least stressful and no one was antagonistic. There are also hundreds of cots, now empty, being carted away (perhaps we'll send them to Dallas? They don't seem to have their act together as well), and nearly every place that ran a drive for anything (including my church and school) has had to ask people to stop giving, because they can't give it out as fast as it comes in and don't have the capacity to keep it inside and dry!
(I, on the other hand, read about the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793 and corralled what seems like three million ten- and eleven-year-olds. My mother may have been doing hard work serving her fellow man, but man, am I tired.)
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