John Cole wrote a great piece: "... But the vast majority of people who are stranded, and, I fear, dead in the flooded parts of NO in numbers we have not yet begun to discover and comprehend, did not ‘choose’ to ‘ignore’ the warnings. They simply had no place to go, no way to get there, no way to afford living in a motel/hotel somewhere else, no relatives outside the region, no automobile....read on"

So much truth in those words. My father didn't make it past the ninth grade and we struggled to make ends meet all through my years living at home. As a ten year old, I would see other kids with new sneakers and I'd make believe I had an older brother who would magically whisk me down to the store in his shiny car and buy me a pair of the newest Converse. There was no Nike or Puma around then and the color didn't much matter.