I'm glad this article was written so that people will remember not to forget. The Gulf will need our help for a long time.

I recently received an email requesting that people send books to the library in New Orleans.

Send to: Rica A. Trigs

New Orleans Public Library

219 Loyola Avenue

New Orleans LA 70112

I've been going through my bookshelves. If we all do that it will make a big difference.

Thanks,

Molly

Thank you for you article, and your kindness. It's truth.

I am a Katrina survivor and a former employee of New Orleans Public Library, laid off after the storm. Please DO NOT send books to New Orleans Public Library! They have been swamped with books, tons of books, semi trucks full of books -- so many that even the 900 volunteers associated with ALA could not process them. The library is being buried alive by gift books! We all appreciate your kindness, but when you have no buildings to house them, and no librarians to catalog them, books are not really what we need. What New Orleans Public and the other devastated Gulf Coast libraries need right now is money, money to rebuild. If you would like to use your used books to help, a good thing to do is to hold a used book sale in your community and donate the proceeds to a Guld Coast library. You can go to http://www.nutrias.org to learn about NOPL's recovery efforts and learn how to donate.

I would also like to correct one thing in the piece -- there are not two libraries open in New Orleans, but four, and soon to be six, as the volunteers and vendors of ALA have refurbished two branches. Check your facts, Salon! A simple visit to the website above could have confirmed this.

I'd also like to speak to the rebuilding effort in New Orleans. People want to rebuild, to get on with their lives. We are not just sitting on our hands waiting for the Feds or whoever to do something. But when you have no place to live, no water, no electricity, how much can you do? New Orleans needs help. Remember, it could have been your city. Terrorism, bird flu, earthquakes -- next time it might *be* your city. If New Orleans is left to rot and die on the vine, how can any American city think itself secure? It could happen to you.

Susan,

From one writer to another, you really knocked this one out the park. Thank you for the thoughtful story that confirms what my friends and family are still saying. However, it sadly is the same article I published 6 months ago! Another writer will be able to publish the same story 6 years from now. Nothing is being done! Bagdad is arguably in better shape in some places! Oh... that's right we are rebuilding there!

Carol Roshto-Smith

America does not care.

Listen, I watched, along with my 65-year-old mother, people stranded, dehydrated, abandoned, calling out for help from the Superdome, and days went by when there was no response from the Federal or State level.

I am a white male in my mid-thirties, and my mother was raised in Kansas, as was I, and we were absolutely disgusted at the blatant neglect of these people by our country. No, it goes beyond disgust. It was horrifying.

It was horrific. There is no other word to descibe it. And whatever Anderson Cooper and his ilk may have done, nobody has held this President accountable for the deaths and tragedies that followed from that.

America does not care. It is blatantly obvious. It is so obvious, it is invisible, like the air we breathe.

I wonder how many Salon readers have sent money or written letters to "Free Tibet," and yet have done nothing to help or support the victims of our national response to Katrina.

We don't care. It should not even be a question. It should be an exclamation.

There are a lot of us who haven't given up on you, nor stopped thinking about you for a minute. The government is the only entity that really has the power to do what needs to be done for you, and it's true, if it were Florida or California, it'd be put right in no time. But we can't order our government to make New Orleans right. All we can do is this:

Write your congressperson or senator;

Donate to the charities serving New Orleans and the Katrina victims;

Visit New Orleans and purchase there. Many of the businesses of New Orleans are also up and running online, and can ship if you order from their websites. Chuck Taggart, a DJ and New Orleans native, runs a blog at www.gumbopages.com/looka , where he has listed New Orleans businesses from which you can order products. Scroll down and look on the right-hand side for "Shop New Orleans" (thanks Chuck!).

I have never even visited New Orleans, but I haven't stopped thinking about you. There are many Americans who haven't, and who have done all of the above and more. I know you feel that we don't acknowledge you, but we do; you just have to acknowledge that we exist too. I hope and pray that your life gets better, and that New Orleans is rebuilt properly.

http://www.deweydonationsystem.org/ is a good site if you want to donate to libraries affected by Katrina. This site is running a book drive for Harrison County libraries that in some cases lost their entire collections.

And for remembering that there were TWO hurricanes that battered and destroyed the Louisiana coast last year. My family was in Rita's path and in addition to feeling, no to KNOWING they are forgotten by the US Government and have been cheated by their insurance companies, they also live with the fact that they aren't remembered by people in the US. Katrina is sexier, cooler, has "buzz". Rita is apparently just a bunch of devastated Cajuns. After all, if CNN doesn't cover it and a National Geographic special says that FEMA coped pretty well during Rita - and it didn't hit Houston after all - it must not have been bad.

Tell that to my 9-month's pregnant godchild and her husband who are currently living in a home where half the house is unlivable due to mold because their landlord won't fix the roof. He knows good and well they can't find anywhere else to rent at any price. Tell that to a cousin's family who are split between grandma's and a travel trailer until some contractor can finally get started rebuilding their home that was completely destroyed by the storm. Tell that to a friend of ours who got FEMA out to her place 3 months after the home, half destroyed by wind and rain damager was completely destroyed by fire the night electricity came back on. She didn't see her insurance company for another couple of months.

Luckily, the people in the part of the world I call home tend to stick together, to care for one another. We have to. Nobody else in the country, apparently, considers us worth it.