I'll be brief.

Driving home tonight after spending the weekend at my grandparents' house on the lake, I got to thinking about the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The unspeakable tragedy had started to seep in somewhat, but after a lifetime of emotionally overreacting to huge human events, I knew better than to let myself get carried away.

However, that's exactly what I did. I started to imagine my house flooding. What if I had gone to the second floor with my dog and the water kept rising? What if I managed to slip out a window into the fetid water, but I couldn't get myself and the puppy to safety? What if, when we finally were able to claw our way onto someone's roof, it took days before someone came to rescue us? All that time we had to watch other people suffering in the same circumstances with nothing to drink or eat, nowhere to shelter or go to the bathroom? What if bodies floated by in the water?

Yes, my imagination got the better of me. As the National Guard, Army, and various police and rescue forces recover Katrina's dead over the next few days, they will undoubtedly encounter people who suffered as much or worse than I described.

Then, I started to wonder what I would do if disaster hit the area where I live and I was forced to flee for some reason. Thank God I have credit cards, a vehicle, and family to go to far from here. I would make it out somehow, even if I had to buy my way there. Thousands in the Gulf Coast area don't have those advantages. They had no transportation to leave when the evacuation was ordered. They had no credit cards to buy an emergency plane or bus ticket to safety. Now, they are told they will not be able to return to their homes for months. How are they supposed to live between now and then? Most were barely eking out a living before. Where will their children go to school?

For the first time in my memory, the United States has a considerable population of American refugees on its hands. Some of them will be sheltered beginning this week at Fort Custer - a little used Army post two hours from here. I don't know what plans the government and relief agencies have for them. People will need counseling, schools, clothing, laundry facilities, food, and a purpose.

That is why I am asking you to join me in giving. Every dollar we give will help comfort someone or rebuild their life. Many of the refugees who were the last out of New Orleans were black. They must've felt in the first few days, as the wheels of the government failed to respond, that they were forgotten. In a certain sense, they were. Let's show them now that we won't forget them, or any victim of tragedy, ever again.