Letter to the Editor

Your view: Response on response

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

I suspect that it made you feel good to write this essay. No doubt you are proud as I am of the response of Missourians to last week's terrible weather. But what you have attempted to do by implication is to denigrate the local response in New Orleans to a disaster perhaps one hundred thousand times more serious than the tornado that badly damaged the small North Missouri town of Renick.

One can only hope that you and the good people of Sikeston will never have to face anything so terrible as the disaster brought to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. But sitting atop the New Madrid fault zone is a somewhat perilous perch from which to condemn those from New Orleans who have had their lives virtually destroyed. Just this week we witnessed another family finally reuniting after six long months. Hundreds of thousands are refugees and still cannot return from temporary shelter often hundreds of miles away.

If an earthquake of the size this area suffered nearly two centuries ago should, God forbid, strike Southeast Missouri in the future, I suspect we all will be most grateful for any help whatsoever from individuals, charities or religious organizations, and especially from the Federal Government.

No, Mr. Jensen, it doesn't take a genius to read between the lines of this story, and it certainly didn't take a genius to write it. When disaster of the magnitude suffered by New Orleans or Tsunami victims in Southeast Asia strikes we should be praying for, not condemning the poor souls who are suffering.

Judge not lest ye be judged.

Bill Romjue