As some of you may know, Lucy Lawless was in the middle of filming Vampire Bats!, a CBS movie, when Hurricane Katrina was barreling towards New Orleans. She was one of thousands who were in the massive traffic jam exiting the city for the safety of Baton Rouge and elsewhere. In the short time she was in New Orleans, she fell in love with the area and its inhabitants, and the tragedy of Katrina struck a chord in her - so many of her friends were and are affected by it. On November 23 & 24, she went to NO for fundraisers, one of which was the New Orleans Louisiana Sheriff's 31st Annual Thanksgiving Day Celebration at the New Orleans House of Blues, the other a fundraiser in Jefferson Parish. Rest assured, Katrina's victims are never far from Lucy's thoughts, and she continues to do what she can to keep awareness of their plight alive.
Her website has her message for and about New Orleans, and further down the page, photos (and embedded video) of her November trip to the city for Thanksgiving.
Follow me to read her message below the fold.....
Ohhhh, New Orleans! How I love you.
It was wonderful to see the pulse quickening down in the French Quarter, but it is certainly an isolated island in a sea of darkness come nightfall. There is no electricity in many areas, which is hampering rebuilding. My N.O. friends tell me that while single folk are starting to get curious about returning, families won't start coming back till January and truthfully, for thousands and thousands, there is nothing but toxic waste to come home to. The heavy metals deposited by flooding have covered miles with poison mud, now dried to a thick dusty crust. Bulldozing kicks up a lot of mercury, arsenic etc. which is an added hindrance to recovery.
Today a Louisiana native came to stay with us till she gets on her feet. She's relocating to LA. She has lived here before and did not love it, but she is strong, talented and resourceful and she's going to make it.
The police and emergency services begged me to keep talking about New Orleans. They feel so alone and they fear that everybody has forgotten about them. I'm afraid they might be partially right. I am just sick at their isolation and their vulnerability. Any kind word of support just makes them melt. Forget any stain of corruption or rats jumping ship. These officers and emergency personnel have remained at their posts through thick and thin. Their marriages are under awful strain, their children are living far away. In many, many cases their houses are destroyed and some have lost family members to the flooding and the pestilence that followed.
The wealth of a nation is not about having a Walmart at every off-ramp. It is not about a free clothes iron with your mail-order vacuum cleaner. It is about the quality of caring between strangers. Last year, I visited Bangladesh, one of the poorest countries on Earth, where 80% of usable land floods every year. I have seen poverty, and more pernicious inter-generational poverty, which destroys the fabric of caring even to the point of mothers throwing their 4-year-old children on the roofs of trains just to get rid of them. I understand now that even the mother-child bond is eroded, destroyed or never develops where survival is threatened. What hope then for the bonds between strangers?
Hurricane Katrina has lifted the lid on our own dirty laundry. The poverty that we have too long ignored, the ecology that we have undermined further stressed inadequate infrastructures for the above and blasted out of the water the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of people.
It seems a bitter joke that, like Blanche Dubois, New Orleans natives have come to rely on the kindness of strangers. But to me this care is the glue that binds us in a social compact. You cannot have civilisation where there is no trust/respect between strangers. It proves the strength of a nation. This is Unity. It seems to me that this is something the United States should know something about. This holiday season we could forgo the latest gizmo and pledge a gift to a stranger in our community, or in New Orleans or even overseas. Every time we do this we add a thread to the fabric of care that binds all beings on this planet far more securely than all the political manoeuvring in the world.
Let us be Conscious.
Love always,
Lucy L
Lucy's fans number in the thousands and can be found throughout the world. Through their love for her and the generosity in their hearts, they continue to donate time, items, and money to Katrina's victims, and will do so until the need is no longer there. I write this diary not just to share Lucy's message, but to also let those affected by this tragedy know that they are not forgotten and will not be forgotten.
Read blksista's diaries as well, and keep hope alive.