I was at Lamar Dixion to help rescue animals from New Orleans. While the animal rescue angencies did there very best, everyone was working 10/12 hour days and some longer. I'm planning on atending the HSUS convention next spring to discuss what went reight and what went wrong and how HSUS could have done better. One thing I must say is that there were not enough data entry people. The Lamar Dixion site was better than being alone hungry and lacking water, or even fresh air it was a stressful place for the animals. It was loud, with all the dogs barking, the helicopters flying over, the generator and compresors running. I'm surprised the cats, birds and reptiles didn't have a heart attack as they didn't know the dogs weren't out where they could "get" them. Other people took it upon themselvs to get animals out of the city, one group even came together and formed a rescue group with all the legal paper work. I can not imagine why someone would agree to foster an animal and then refuse to give it back to the owner. We all had to have vet and shelter sponsers to take an animal with the understanding we would surrender the animal when the owner was located. HSUS attempted to make sure every person looking for their pet was accompanied to keep the paper work from being put in the wrong enelope, that wasn't always possible. Every day the records were updated as to food and water when the dogs were walked and the cages of both dogs and other animals were cleaned. One of the first days I was there a man found his dog, but checking the micro chip and the paper work didn't match. An attempt was made to locate the correct paper work, but in the end we gave him his dogs micro chip number and let him take his dog as it was so obvious that it was his dog. It was an overwhelming job, just to see they were all tken care of. Everyone involvd was an animal lover, or they wouldn't have come from every state to volunteer. My siggestion when I get to the convention is to see more data entry people be involved. Then there was the different dates when the foster family could adopt the dog to someone else or adopt it themselves, or the shelter could adopt out the animal. LAHS said Oct., HSUS said Nov. and the ASPCA said Dec. This was the largest animal rescue every. Lots went right and a lot went wrong, but we learned a lot. For every owner still searching I wish them good luck, for every owner that can't find their pet I'm sorry, and in summery everyone I met and worked with wanted every owner to find thier pet, we tried very hard.

I am very disapointed the reports you did on New Orleans! It seams that Katrina was the only harricane that hit the Louisiana coast. What about the weastern part of LA and Southeast Texas?
Cameron Parish and Sabine Pass are no longer standing! The cleanup is extreamly messive.
I guess we don't hear about Rita because there was not that many deaths here. Is that news worthy?
What about the poeple in Florida that were hit by Wilma?!

I love that this blog exists. I rarely have time to watch the evening news, but like Brian Williams very much. This feels so much more personal than a newscast. Thank you and please keep it up.

In response to Mr. Wood's comments on whether or not water rushed in as a wall after the failure of the levees. When levees fail they fail catastrophically in a manner similar to a dam failure. The height of the water wall will be as high as the levee and the water behind. Structures in the immediate vicinity of the break are very likely to be pushed off their foundations and destroyed. The water coming through the break will look smooth becasue of the speed and the amount of pressure pushing it through. Yes, farther away from the break the water will spread out and drop in height, but right at the break it is extremely dangerous. Film footage of the power of a levee break exists from the 1993 floods on the Mississippi - specifically the levee break south of St. Louis in IL on Aug 31, 1993. Structural responses to flood hazards are extremely expensive monetarily and environmentally and as we saw in New Orleans, can create a false sense of security and therefore cost lives when they fail.

I know that I would love a longer update on the devastation of the Gulf Coast region, not just New Orleans. Would an hour long special edition be a good idea? I know you would get a huge viewing. Maybe Dateline should cover it? Of course, Brian being the 'host' for that special edition.

Thank you for continuing to report from New Orleans and the surrounding areas affected by the hurricanes. It is so easy to forget about the devestation living away from the area. Your reports help to bring us back to reality and to remind us that much help is still needed.

Hi Brian, I really liked the good news segments that were broadcast several weeks ago. Those are stories of hope that let us know there is some good in this world even yet. As for the rest of the news, there are no man-made solutions. There is no deliverance from the White House, from Congress or the Senate, from the Governors or from the Mayors. The problems are too complex for mere humans to solve. It's time to look UP. There was plenty of talk about prayer in the beginning of these disasters, but where is God in our thinking right about now? We are approaching Christmas 2005 AD, and we are right back to square 0, leaving HIM out of it. This does not seem very wise to me.

Sir: I cannot believe you characterise the water that flooded New Orleans as arriving with great speed and violence. We've all seen the video tapes of the levee's breaching and the water pouring in but it clearly poured in sedately and then its level inexorably rose. There was no great rushing wall of water that washed houses and cars about violently. The houses and cars moved because they floated and then drifted about and settled where they did as they either sank or the water subsided. To state the situation as you have, simply misstates what happened and I find your statements to be remarkably unprofessional. I remain, Yours truly, Gregory S. Wood

Once again, Brian, you and the crews brought into my home the heartbreaking but touching stories from the
Hurricane Zone. As always, you all did it through your wonderful reporting, producing, directing, and "filmography" abilities. Thank you for your continuing coverage. I appreciate you!!!

Thank you Brian, New Orleans needs to be rebuilt. Didnt the Presidnet say so or is lying again?

I lived in Gulfport, MS and taught at Long Beach Elementary School in 1972 when my husband was stationed at the Seabee base. It was a wonderful place to be a Navy family, because the people were still so grateful to the Navy for re-building the area after hurricane Camile in 1969.

Have the resources available at this base been used at all to help in the clean-up, and recovery effort?

I looked at the Blog for the first time tonight after watching tonights newscast and really liked it

Thank you, Mr. Williams for continuing to report on the aftermath of the hurricanes in the Gulf Region.
I am so ashamed of our government. No one wants to accept responsibility for the clean up that must take place. So much distruction still in evidence. And so many people without homes and jobs. The poor are not throw aways. I and others in our communtiy have formed an Ecumenical Council of Churches and are offering hospitality to survivors of the hurricanes. Thus far we have one family that arrived just before Thanksgiving. The churches across our country are doing a wonderful job of reaching out and helping families and individuals who have been left with little or nothing because of Katrina and Rita.
Please keep up the wonderful work you are doing, we need to be reminded that all is not well in the Gulf Region.

Dear Mr.Brian Williams:
Since last Sunday's Meet the Press family and friends have listened to my comments regarding my prediction realized that Katrina victims have been essentially forgotten by the rest of the country. The consensus during that show was that the country's empathy has moved on.
Your broadcasts from New Orleans this week have been incredibly sucessful in bringing the pain and loss of our beloved city vividly back into the minds and hearts of our country citizens. As long as we know that people in the media as talented and vocal as you will continue to report on our plight, then we will have strengh for the long journey back.
My family and I continue to discuss how moved we were by your poignant special presentation aired here last week on your coverage at the Superdome.Your video provides us with a documented account so that no one can ever forget what happened during this natural, partially man made, tragedy.
Our family will not longer channel shop for national news. We are committed and very thankful to you.In fact, you are our candidate for Time's Man of the Year.
I have lived in New Orleans all of my life. I am a clinical school social worker recently trained by Save the Children Organization to initiate a recovery and prevention program for post Karina stress in our school children. I hope that you may one day highlight the wonderful work that that organization is doing to help Katrina's youngest victims.
We will be forever grateful for your help and hope that you will continue to bring the real facts about life as it is for us.

Brian, first, kudos for putting the whole nightly broadcast up on the web after the affiliates have used it. Other networks will have to me-too on this.

But about the N.O. stuff, without asking the question whether the former cypress swamp areas improperly built upon as the city grew should be restored with other people's money, your efforts down there look like a lobbying campaign.

Thank you Brian Williams. Through you, the rest of the country has a better idea of the total Katrina devastation. Most of us in the New Orleans metropolitan area feel that our country has forgotten us----including FEMA. Everything is happening so slowly! Rebuilding appears to be a very long process even if you only lost a portion of your home. After three months the only thing noticeable in my area is that the high piles of household contents are mostly gone along with the terrible smell. It is also lacks life...no birds, no squirrels, no life in general except flies. Your broadcast gives us hope..."New Orleans will return." Thank you for your broadcasts from the New Orleans area.

Sincerely, Judith Palomar, a diplaced Metairie home owner.

I'm afraid, once again, that you've dropped the ball for the Gulf coast. MANY, MANY of the people down here are more upset that you've seem to have simply FORGOTTEN that while many of us were housing friends, relatives and strangers whose homes were devastated during Katrina, WE were hit hard by RITA. Ring any bells? If you don't live in Southwest Louisiana I doubt it does. Yet, as my friends returned home to New Orleans, we spent 17 days in Central Louisiana with 120 developmentally disabled students evacuated from their residential facility in Lake Charles (my husband is administrator and we, with about 75 other employees and family members evacuated with them), sleeping on quilts, a few mattresses, and eventually cots, mattresses and/or beds. It is now over 2 months since Hurricane RITA left HER devastation here in Lake Charles and I remain in a home barely livable, having just received our insurance adjustor's estimates...he estimates another 3 weeks before we got approval and/or a check. And my husband and I had "minimal" damage. This "minimal" damage (we didn't have a tree or anything fall on our house) was estimated at $50,000, mostly wind and rain roof damage which caused extensive damage to interior ceilings and walls. 20 miles to our South, in Cameron, Louisiana, people are trying to rebuild...the town, like Pass Christien, MS and many others on the gulf coast, is virtually GONE. This was NOT from Katrina, who has received every fund-raiser's attention in the world, but from Rita, the hurricane that no one has heard of. We don't want pity, we want to be recognized as part of a great state...a state that the bottom half of is all be devastated. NOT just the "toe" of the boot...but also the "heel" - US! So how about a mention about Rita sometime? You might check your figures again as well. Rita's winds, I believe, were stronger than Katrina's on impact.

After watching last nights broadcast and the darkness that still haunts the gulf I began to wonder how and where do the stories come from. Sure there are millions of stories out there but to find them and put it into an 18 minute broadcast in a context that can be understood, well its quite a task for sure.

I was looking forward to tonights show and I wasn't dissapointed. Would have appreciated a more in depth weeklong report but giving the above mentioned challenges, overall good trip everyone.

Now I know why another network lost my faithfullness when we all lost Peter, because of the quality of the product. Ya'all are doing some fine journalisim even under such restraining circumstances.

Kinda makes me wonder how goes the gulf so goes America?

That said I must ask does not the suffering of those struggling in poverty throughout America deserve a true examination and hopefully leading to a real disscussion on what has been ignored for so so long.

Ya'all have the ball, run with it.

Safe and pleasent trip home.

I feel like this country has sacrificed New Orleans and the Gulf Coast for the Bush Administartion's war on Iraq. It is criminal.

lET'S PRAY TAHT THE PEOPLE OF NEW ORLEANS WILL BE ABLE TO REBUILD THEIR LIVES EFFECTIVELY AND HEALED FROM THEIR WOUNDS SPEEDILY.