Letter from one who "chose" not to evacuate New Orleans

Dear sir,

My name is John Smith. I am married with two young children. My wife's elderly mother is sickly and lives with us.

I had a decent job working as a dockworker at the port of New Orleans. I made enough money to make payments on my own home, feed my wife and kids, and take care of my mother-in-law. I don't have a car because insurance costs too much, gas costs too much, and I can get to work by bus. We can walk to church and the grocery store. I'm taking care of us and doing OK.

A lot of us in our neighborhood are in the same situation. Doing OK, barely, but working hard to get by. We don't get any money from the government, just what I make at the docks.

When hurricane Katrina was headed for New Orleans and the mayor said to get ourselves out of here, I looked in the garage for the car I don't have. Then I looked at the bus schedule for the buses that weren't running, and that I didn't have money for 5 bus fares for, and then I called the Holiday Inn up in Baton Rouge that was all booked up and I had no money for anyway. I told them we'd be willing to share a room if they had a courtesy van to pick us up and would let us stay for a few months for the twenty dollars I had in my pocket. That $20 is going to have to last a long time because I don't think I'm going to be able to work if the hurricane floods the city.

So exactly how the f**k am I supposed to evacuate myself and my wife, kids, and mother-in-law? Walk a hundred miles in the storm through the night with everyone tied together with a rope and flashlights? And where the f**k am I supposed to stay once I get to Baton Rouge? I don't have any relatives there and nobody set up any shelters there for a hundred thousand people.

So please, the next time it occurs to you that I puposely didn't heed the warnings of the approaching storm and chose to ignore the evacuation orders, why don't you take your elitist head out of you big honky ass before you evacuate yourself.

Sincerely,
John Smith