For those of you who haven’t been following Project Kinect, or missed it, last June a few of us went to Tuscaloosa to help with the tornadoes clean up after the earth shattering tornadoes went through on April 27th, 2011. One of my other outlets that I sometimes post in is my CNN iReport and last week I received this message. It was so wonderful receiving this email and getting confirmation that Tuscaloosa is on the upward end of these disasters. It is one thing to read this in the news and see tidbits in social media outlets, but to actually get to hear it directly from a resident is fantastic. Thank you for this email.
I just viewed your iReport of your last day in Tuscaloosa. Couldn’t help notice
how emotional you were, it was a very trying time, and continues to be. I
understand how you would think how the relief resources were letting people
down. No doubt, some victims fell through the cracks, but that was a catastrophe
that we haven’t seen on that scale in a century. I am NOT making excuses, living
here, however, I saw how the churches and just regular folks, like yourself came
and helped out. With the official relief organizations, they were lacking, but
the community and people from all over the country did their best to pick up the
slack. Hopefully you’ve followed the progress we’ve made since last June. There
are dozens of Facebook pages you can find info on. Most of the debris has been
clear, but it still twists my gut to drive through the affected areas. As the
mayor finally admitted, you couldn’t have picked a worse path, it cut through
some of the poorest sections of town. I just felt compelled to message you and
let you know that things have progressed, but no one will ever be the same after
that terrible day. I’d like to say thank you for coming down and helping and
documenting, the news networks took off when the EMS contained them to a small
area so they couldn’t go into the worst areas and film the dead bodies, which is
just disgraceful, on the reporters’ part, those are people’s family and friends.
All they seemed to be concerned with was the death toll, which is still
inaccurate for reasons I won’t get into. I took pics and video, and I still
haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it, was born and raised at DCH
hospital, the one you could see in the background, I balled like a baby when I
saw the destruction had been done. Check out Facebook, though, there are many
pages that show what good has been done since.
Here is the video that she was responding to.
