Abraham Verghese, M.D., is the Joaquin Cigarroa Jr. Chair and Marvin Forland Distinguished Professor at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio. After volunteering at the Houston shelters during the relief effort for the Hurricane Katrina evacuees, Dr. Verghese’s story of meeting the first hurricane evacuees that were sent to San Antonio resonated with me because it is similar to many conversations that I have had over the past couple of weeks with various evacuees:

Hesitantly, I asked each patient, “Where did you spend the last five days?” I wanted to reconcile the person in front of me with the terrible locales on television. But as the night wore on, I understood that they needed me to ask; to not ask was to not honor their ordeal. Hard men wiped at their eyes and became animated in the telling. The first woman, the one who seemed mute from stress, began a recitation in a courtroom voice, as if preparing for future testimony.

Read the entire unvarnished account. Also, check out this Bob Herbert NY Times piece that relates how the corporate owners of the hard-hit Methodist Hospital in east New Orleans responded to the flood after the hurricane by sending emergency relief supplies to the hospital. Unfortunately, the owners sent the supplies to the airport where FEMA officials confiscated them and sent the supplies elsewhere. Along those same lines, here is the story of a volunteer doctor during the relief effort who a FEMA official ordered to stop treating a patient because he was not registered with FEMA.
Finally, here is a helpful FactCheck.org compilation of stories relating to who knew what when in regard to Hurricane Katrina.