Katrina Update

Slidell is slowly but surely recovering from Katrina.
My parents are there now, have been since Saturday. As it turns out, their house was largely spared. It got about 3 inches of water, and a tree branch went through the roof, but they didn't lose anything except a few rugs and some shoes. The floors and the ceilings/roof will have to be replaced, but since they don't own the house the church will take care of that. Mom and Dad are in high spirits. They don't have power or phone, but they have hot running water. They just bought a generator, and when I talked to them last, were trying to put it together. They got MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) at the support place set up in town, and had managed to get ice and gasoline — they were even going to grill a fish that had been in the freezer. David's cat, who chose another family a few months ago, came back. The house where he was staying is still boarded up, so he must have figured he could find something to eat with his former family. He and Kramer (the dog) appear to have reached some kind of understanding. A tree removal company came by and cleared out all the trees in the yard for a reasonable price. My dad says it's like camping, but my mom says camping is supposed to be relaxing, and they're working too hard. If I didn't know better, I'd think they were on vacation.
Right now, they're cleaning. They've got to get everything that did get wet out before the mildew gets too bad. They were very lucky. According to my mom, it's really eerie there — there aren't a lot of people back yet, so the town is pretty deserted. Most of the trees are down, so it's a lot hotter than usual (and it's usually HOT), and very bright and open-feeling. The destruction, even in their neighborhood, is really bad.
It looks like things will be back up and running sooner than was thought, though. Apparently, there were lots of power trucks assembled and ready to get into New Orleans before the storm hit, but since they can't go to New Orleans they're working on the Northshore (of Lake Pontchartrain). That means that Slidell is getting attention it probably wouldn't have otherwise, which is good, I guess (obviously, it would have been better if New Orleans wasn't in such a state, but that's a subject for another time). My dad may be back at work this week, since other towns in his area weren't as badly hit.
The current plan (although this has changed a number of times and will probably change again) is that they'll come up to Chicago the first weekend in October. They were planning on visiting then anyway. After that, who knows. It probably depends on how much of the Slidell infrastructure is repaired by then. The market where my mom worked was destroyed, and the owners lost everything, so right now she's unemployed, like thousands of others in the area. Maybe she'll work up here for a while, maybe not. I've stopped trying to plan anything with regard to this aftermath. Maybe the fam will show up on my doorstep tomorrow, who knows?
If anyone out there wants to help out, you can donate to the Red Cross. Also, I can't even think about it, but the number of animals abandoned because of the storm who died or are now homeless is staggering. A lot of them were with people who couldn't get out of the city and died in the flood, others were just left behind when their families evacuated. The ASPCA is accepting donations to help them. There's an organization that helps animals in the aftermath of disasters called Noah's Wish, which has a shelter set up in Slidell. There are several other groups that are collecting money (like the one Pete told us about, that's specific to Slidell), but I haven't checked any of them out. If you're interested in getting more info about what's going on in Slidell, check out the Slidell Hurricane Damage blog. It was actually started by a guy I know from work — I had no idea he was from Slidell.
Now Ike's awake, so I've got to go. I'll update more as I get info.