Gotta See It to Believe It - No matter how much this is covered in the news, no one can understand the extent of the damage and the overwhelming consequences of inaction, social injustice and political will...unless you GO and SEE it with your own eyes. Even I, who was familiar with the area already and the mess that existed before Katrina, was shocked by the extent and degree of the devastation.

I have difficulty imagining the reaction of my peers, many of whom have never seen or experienced such extreme inequality before. Kind of ironic, since we are entering the field of public health to combat just that. No wonder so many of them just tried to ignore their experiences when we got back. It's sad that they did so, but I guess they didn't know what else to do.

Retrospective, April 5, 2006