I'm starting to hear from some family and friends in the path of Katrina.

My girlfriend, Laurel, in Mobile, Ala. had some minor damage and lost power for a little while.

My ex-brother-in-law, who pastors a church in Metairie, had a home that was in New Orleans and it has 4 foot of water in it. He's safe in Michigan at his father-in-laws house.

One of his rental houses, where my ex-husband lived, got 10 feet of water. My daughter heard from my ex-husband and he's waiting for an airplane to air lift him somewhere. Doesn't know where yet.

My aunt who's house was 3 blocks off the beach in Gulfport, has 4 foot of water in her house and she's safe in Jackson, MS. with another aunt.

I heard from another friend in Gulfport, who's house has minor damage and he was in Florida picking up supplies for his neighborhood.

I'm hoping to hear from more family as the days go by.

I'm am so humbled now that I complained about the water that came into our basement a couple weeks ago from a flash flood and we were trapped in our neighborhood for 2 days. We pulled up the carpet and replaced it with tile. Now we will repaint and reorganize the area to look better. We didn't lose our house or our jobs.

We only lost power for an hour and we had fresh water and food.

These poor people have lost everything!!