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This topic has moved here: Subject: Flood Relief
  • Subject: Flood Relief
Subject: Flood Relief
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Seeing as how I lived in Florida for 18 years, and visit my hometown there at least twice a year, I can appreciate first hand what the people of the Gulf coast are going through right now. Six major storms, at least 15 tropical storms, and untold of numbers of "regular" storms have rolled through my region in the 26 years I've been alive. Be that as it may, I still haven't seen devastation on the same scale as that of the Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama coasts. Those of you that know a little of me know I voiced my opinions over on the MLG forums in their New Orleans thread. I have already sent $400 worth of food and $200 worth of water to the local food drives in Hampton, VA where I currently live. The only things stopping me from sending more are the facts that I'm low on money and that I'm currently about 1500 miles out from starting the transit of the Straight of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea. Being in the Navy is hard enough, especially when I could have been on the Truman and actually in the area instead of the Roosevelt and on my way to the Persian Gulf. I would love to be able to buy 10 of the "Fight the Flood" shirts, however, the internet restrictions placed on the ships network prevent me from viewing https sites, so as of right now I won't be able to get even one shirt until March of 2006 when I return stateside. I hope that the items that Bungie is going to auction off will be done through Ebay so I can at least get a chance to look at them, much less buy them. I will be going for anything that they can offer that I'm able to see, and there will be at least $2500 in the account to send to the relief efforts. There's also the possibility of whatever I buy being reauctioned with the profits from that auction also going to the relief efforts. Personally, I don't feel enough people are doing enough to help out. Granted, everyone that has sent in and done anything to help is much appreciated, but, to those that haven't, is it really that much of a big deal to send $20, or $10, or even $5? Five dollars is enough to buy 12 gallons of fresh water at standard supermarket prices. Twelve gallons of water is enough to help a family of 4 survive for at least 3 days. Something so significant for a mere $5. Every single person in America should be sending in money to help out. If you make more, send more, it's not that hard. Every single little bit helps.

the DJ

p.s. Bungie, please put the auction up on Ebay, you'll enable at least another 10,000 people in the Roosevelt battle group to have the chance to help out.

  • 09.08.2005 4:07 AM PDT
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Hey everybody Cold Karma here (AKA AfterEffect), I was just goin to let all of you know that in Warner Robins, Georgia my buddy Daniel and I are having a massive Halo 2 Tourney for High Schoolers through College Students at the church that we attend Southside Baptist Church. The entry fee is going to be 5 bucks a person and all proceeds will be sent to the American Red Cross. It is a fantastic idea and a really really quick way to get some money together to send to the people who need it! We have a few problems with how many we are going to be able to fit in the room we have and tv's are kinda running short......in fact we don't know if we have enough of anything really, but we are doing the best we can and we wanted you all to take this idea and run with it! Our Tourney is probably going to be on September 23 and we are already expecting a huge turn out so pray that all goes well and good luck to the rest of you all who try this out as well! Thanks for listening and God Bless!

  • 09.08.2005 8:17 AM PDT
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In response to bp_1310: I'm not trying to be a smartass or anything but to correctly state Keesler, it would be Keesler AFB. The Army has forts, and the Air Force has bases. Keesler was quite the nice base, my recruiter took us there once when I was in the Air Force and gave us the grand tour, I even tried to get based there, but they had no need for Hercules Crew Chiefs at the time. But, yeah, sorry to have to correct you but I'm quite -blam!- when people confuse Air Force things with Army. We never did have too much fondness for the Army.

  • 09.08.2005 8:20 AM PDT
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First of all I'd just like to say: I pray for you guys over there, and I hope things will sort out for you.You guys are the greatest people, in the greatest country, in the world!

Me and five of my friends got together and bought a T-shirt each so we could share the giant shipping costs to sweden. And we are all encuraging our friends and family to do the same.

And to all you others who don't live in the affected areas but helps all you can by giving money, blood and more to those in need: keep up the good work!

PS: My english sucks... so sorry if there's a lot of bad spelling.

  • 09.08.2005 8:28 AM PDT
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Katrina has affected the entire world and the more everyone donates the better the world will cope with everything that is happening in NO right now. I think that what Bungie is doing is wonderful and i hope that the world will come to see that gamers are not punks and losers but people that care for others and for the world

[Edited on 9/8/2005]

  • 09.08.2005 6:47 PM PDT
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On my last post something is not right on my forum signature:[url=]Flood Relief[/url] and i dont know if i have it right yet or not but if anyone knows how to fix this to a hyperlink can u message me thx

[Edited on 9/8/2005]

  • 09.08.2005 6:53 PM PDT
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There are hundreds of people flooding into northern LA everyday hopefully we can get everything cleaned up so these guys can go home soon. With all the free meals being handed around up here....all of the fast food joints are running out of food. Only thing i don't understand is....New Orleans natives.....don't you guys have family that live outside of New Orleans???

  • 09.09.2005 7:40 AM PDT
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After seeing the shirt available for the victims of Katrina, I played around with some images and came up with the following:

Small
Large

What do you think of it? I think that would make a neat shirt...

  • 09.09.2005 9:44 AM PDT
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Survivor Story: 6-Year-Old Leads Five Toddlers, Baby To Safety
In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard in New Orleans last Thursday, one group of survivors stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.
They were holding hands. Three of the children were about two years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A three-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.
Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.
Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.
"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"
So far, parents displaced by flooding have reported 220 children missing, but that number is expected to rise, said Mike Kenner of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which will help reunite families. With crowds churning at evacuation points, many children were parted from their parents accidentally; one woman handed her baby up onto a bus, turned around to pick up her suitcase and turned back to find that the bus had left.
At the rescue headquarters, a cool tile-floored building swarming with firefighters and paramedics, the children ate cafeteria food and fell into a deep sleep. Deamonte volunteered his vital statistics. He said his father was tall and his mother was short. He gave his address, his phone number and the name of his elementary school.
He said the 5-month-old was his brother, Darynael, and that two others were his cousins, Tyreek and Zoria. The other three lived in his apartment building.
The children were clean and healthy -- downright plump in the case of the infant, said Joyce Miller, a nurse who examined them. It was clear, she said, that "time had been taken with those kids." The baby was "fat and happy."
"This baby child was terrified," he said. "After she relaxed, it was gobble, gobble, gobble."
As grim dispatches came in from the field, one woman in the office burst into tears at the thought that the children had been abandoned in New Orleans, said Sharon Howard, assistant secretary of the office of public health.
Late the same night, they got an encouraging report: A woman in a shelter in Thibodeaux was searching for seven children. People in the building started clapping at the news. But when they got the mother on the phone, it became clear that she was looking for a different group of seven children, Howard said.
"What that made me understand was that this was happening across the state," she said. "That kind of frightened me."
The children were transferred to a shelter operated by the Department of Social Services, rooms full of toys and cribs where mentors from the Big Buddy Program were on hand day and night. For the next two days, the staff did detective work.
Deamonte began to give more details to Derrick Robertson, a 27-year-old Big Buddy mentor: How he saw his mother cry when he was loaded onto the helicopter. How he promised her he'd take care of his little brother.
Late Saturday night, they found Deamonte's mother, who was in a shelter in San Antonio along with the four mothers of the other five children. Catrina Williams, 26, saw her children's pictures on a web site set up over the weekend by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. By Sunday, a private plane from Angel Flight was waiting to take the children to Texas.
In a phone interview, Williams said she is the kind of mother who doesn't let her children out of her sight. What happened the Thursday after the hurricane, she said, was that her family, trapped in an apartment building on the 3200 block of Third Street in New Orleans, began to feel desperate.
The water wasn't going down and they had been living without light, food or air conditioning for four days. The baby needed milk and the milk was gone. So she decided they would evacuate by helicopter. When a helicopter arrived to pick them up they were told to send the children first and that the helicopter would be back in 25 minutes. She and her neighbors had to make a quick decision.
It was a wrenching moment. Williams' father, Adrian Love, told her to send the children ahead.
"I told them to go ahead and give them up, because me, I would give my life for my kids. They should feel the same way," said Love, 48. "They were shedding tears. I said, Let the babies go.' "
His daughter and her friends followed his advice.
"We did what we had to do for our kids, because we love them," Williams said.
The helicopter didn't come back. While the children were transported to Baton Rouge, their parents wound up in Texas, and although Williams was reassured that they would be reunited, days passed without any contact. On Sunday, she was elated.
"All I know is I just want to see my kids," she said. "Everything else will just fall into place."
At 3 p.m. Sunday, DSS workers said good-by to seven children who now had names: Deamonte Love; Darynael Love; Zoria Love and her brother Tyreek. The girl who cried "Gabby!" was Gabrielle Janae Alexander. The girl they called Peanut was Degahney Carter. And the boy whom they called G was actually Lee -- Leewood Moore Jr.
The children were strapped into car seats and driven to an airport, where they were flown to San Antonio to rejoin their parents. As they loaded into the van, the shelter workers looked in the windows; some wept.
The baby gaped with delight in the front seat. Deamonte was hanging onto Robertson's neck so desperately that Robertson decided, at the last minute, to ride with him as far as Lafayette.
Shelter worker Kori Thomas, held Zoria, 3, who reached out to smooth her eyebrows. Tyreek put a single fat finger on the van window by way of goodbye.
Robertson said he doubted the children would remember much of the helicopter evacuation, the Causeway, the sweltering heat or the smell of the flooded city.
"I think what's going to stick with them is that they survived Hurricane Katrina," he said. "And that they were loved."

  • 09.09.2005 3:31 PM PDT
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  • Exalted Heroic Member

Moderator Notice: You're lucky I'm feeling nice today.

[Edited on 9/13/2005 by dmbfan09]

  • 09.09.2005 5:41 PM PDT
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you sick little BLAM!!! people are dieing and all you want to do is try to get people to go to that fricken website! You know you are the kind of person that makes Politicians judge gamers!!! You should get permabanned for that!

  • 09.10.2005 9:12 AM PDT
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I am very sad for those Effected by the Hurricane. I hope all those not affected will do all they can to help those less fortunate. My school is donating $13,000 to relief. Please donate and help your community at local food,and or cloths banks.

  • 09.13.2005 7:05 AM PDT
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Well i am Thankful u are doing this and thank you bungie my mom (surgion) is going down 2 new orleans *i live in indiana* she is gunna be operating on the poor people may god be with you all

  • 09.13.2005 5:27 PM PDT
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I live in New Orleans, well, i did before the hurricane, im in Arkansas now and I live in a apartment. But we got out early so me and my family are safe.
Thanks for this bungie and all the supporters.

  • 09.13.2005 6:20 PM PDT
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Just got home from a 2 week "vacation" in Houston, to my home in Harvey Louisiana, which is about 3 miles, and across the river from New Orleans. Just wanted to say thanks to Bungie for doing what they are doing. Alot of families have been devestated, alot of homes destroyed. These people need our help now more than ever. God bless all who helped.

[Edited on 9/14/2005]

  • 09.14.2005 3:39 PM PDT
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i feel sorry for all those people who died and all those left homeless me and my school are doin the best to send food and money to all those victums sorry to all you that lost family and friends that live in new orleans

  • 09.15.2005 1:11 PM PDT
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Hey, It's LilCalvin again.

I got some pics of my house and the surrounding neighborhood.

http://www.putfile.com/lilcalvin

  • 09.16.2005 1:33 PM PDT
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No, halo 2 has not made this website a worse place


  • 09.22.2005 5:26 PM PDT
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Every time I read the paper or watch the news it shows the devastation in New Orleans. Today is 10/7/05 and though its not in the headlines anymore some people are still trapped there in New Orleans. The Red Cross and all the other relief agencies are doing their best and I would like to say God bless them. They are providing relief day and night. With the new hurricane Rita hitting it has caused even more damage to those in need and the people that were moved to the super dome had to be evacuated to a more inland area. The plans have called for the draining of New Orleans but it is going to take a long time. Many man hours have arlready been spent and it will require many more. I am just a simple student but I am doing all I can to help those in need. Godspeed to the relief agencies and God bless

  • 10.07.2005 3:18 PM PDT