Letter: Katrina victims will depend on generosity of local residents

Friday, Sept. 9, 2005 | 5:42 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

Sept. 10-11, 2005

I have lived in Las Vegas for three years. Before that I lived in New Orleans for 25 years.

What has happened there is indescribable. Language is inadequate to encapsulate such utter devastation and loss. The mind becomes numb when attempting to grasp the extent of the destruction.

We always knew in the back of our minds that this was a possibility. We knew the levees could not handle a storm of this magnitude. But it had never happened, and there was a prevailing sense that it simply wouldn't. It was too unthinkable.

I lived 30 yards from Lake Pontchartrain. If I had not moved here I would be homeless now.

Everything you hold dear -- gone in the blink of an eye. What would you do?

My husband, a practicing physician in Henderson, and I are hopeful that the people of Las Vegas will open their hearts and their pocketbooks to the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Why? Because I know from personal experience that they would do the same for us in a similar circumstance. In a matter of days a million people became homeless and without direction. We feel certain that in a city such as Las Vegas, where so many people have the means to donate heavily to the relief effort, that they will do so.

WENDY MADOW