New Orleans is flattened and parts of Mississippi are on their last legs, but it took a day of rain and a 50-cent gas price increase for many Ball State University students to notice. And now some say they’ve seen enough about Hurricane Katrina. The president has said it will take years to get the hardest-hit places back on their feet, that Katrina is “one of the worst natural disasters” of this country’s history.While this was no deliberate attack on our nation, there was nothing we could’ve done to prevent Katrina’s destruction, and the people of the Gulf coast are certainly experiencing pain, panic and fear that can be compared to that of Manhattan residents on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s not just another hurricane; it looks like a war zone. This is more than just bad weather along the coast — it’s a national concern.Muncie gas prices exceeding $3, for instance, show that this storm reaches much further than the ground it covered. And with the destruction of so much of the oil-rich Gulf’s infrastructure and the president tapping into the federal reserves, we haven’t seen the highest prices yet. Also, more than 28,000 military personnel are currently deployed in the affected areas — so far — which will cause gear shifts in our international politics and will affect the number of troops able to come home from Iraq this month.Beyond the local backlash, bodies are being found in the flood waters every day, and many of those still alive are stranded with no food or clean water. In some areas, every building is damaged or destroyed. Twenty-five thousand people were living in the Superdome, but even inside that “refuge” at least two people died.Yet, as of Tuesday, only one person from Muncie had volunteered with the Red Cross to go down south to help.Only one person associated with this university set out to collect donations for relief funds. One.We might be far away, but we are affected. If every student on this campus drops just $1 off at Everett Keys’ table in the Atrium, that would be almost $20,000 toward helping to rebuild a part of our country. The scale of this disaster is more than we, here, can imagine. In that respect, we have a lot to be grateful for. Now it’s time to show it.��
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