One of the residents of what is left of the town of Waveland Mississippi asked me to tell people not to forget them. Brian Mollere had just buried his mother a few days before we met last week. She'd been taken by Hurricane Katrina and only identified recently, weeks after the storm.

We had doubts about the restorative power of seated massage in the face of such despair and disaster. But what we found were relief workers, many who were survivors of the storm themselves, who hadn't had a day off in more than 9 weeks. They were so glad to see us that the looks on their faces were priceless. They loved their little 15 minute vacations and our reputation as the "purple shirts" preceded us due to the presence of massage teams in Mississippi the past 7 weeks.

In disaster relief centers all over Harrison and Pearl River counties our team mates from ERMI- Emergency Response Massage International supplied the power of touch in a specially designed massage protocol for the purpose of reducing stress, a palpable commodity in a disaster zone.

The firefighters, guardsmen, emergency medical teams, police and government workers we met ma'amed and hugged us, shook our hands and generally paid us with smiles and sighs.

Whenever we had the priviledge of a hot meal, clean water, a roof over our heads, streets clear of debris and our own good health, we gave thanks.

Please don't forget the people in Katrina's path. I promised I would remind you.

One photo is of the remains of Waveland, Ms. The other was taken at the hub where trailers are gathered and distributed.
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ps - for the folks who asked about Keesler AFB, I didn't see it, sorry.

[This message has been edited by flyangler (edited 07 November 2005).]