Hurricane Katrina

I have a special relationship to hurricanes. Today is my birth day. I am 57 and was born in the eye of a hurricane (Hurricane number 9, they didn’t name them back then) in New Orleans in 1948 under the light of a kerosene hurricane lantern. It was a small hurricane, probably a Cat 1. I talked to my Dad today and he said when I was born everyone was honking their horns. All is quiet and still in the eye of a hurricane, for a few minutes before the other side of the wall roars in. He said it was all very eerie. He said that Lake Ponchitrane held fast with that hurricane but gave way a few years prior to my birth which resulted in flooding New Orleans.

The images of Katrina are haunting to me. So much devastation! The outer fringes even entered Georgia, the storm was that large. The United States now has its own catastrophe. Time will only tell if we as a nation pull together and help those less fortunate or lapse into a numbness where we only watch as others suffer without reaching out. I think this nation is capable of tending to its own with compassion.

Please consider ways you can help. Cash donations is always a good way to start. Consider generosity. Then magnify it even larger. Be extra careful with who you donate to because there are crafty scam artists at work who can steal your well intentioned contributions.

The hurricane survivors will soon start spreading out across the nation. They will have nothing to offer others in the form of payment for refuge. They have lost everything. It really is unimaginable. I can not even begin to guess what life is like for these people. Go the extra mile and look for other opportunities to help the less fortunate.

And here is one last thing to consider. Calamity of this nature and magnitude can occur anywhere. Natural disasters have no boundaries. Neither do accidents in life. Many religions are founded on the simple statement, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Now is the time to think and act on this principle. This is not a time to watch without some kind of action.

Well said Treeman.


How about us tree climbers doing a "climb-a-thon" to raise some cash for our brothers and sisters down south. Anyone interested in helping to brainstorm this idea?

And by the way, a warm Happy Birthday to you, Mr. Jenkins.

Thanks Lichen for your input. What would a climb a thon look like? Is money raised by how many feet we climb? Would it be a flat cost donation to the climber? How would the money be channeled to the right place? I have never seen a climb a thon but it sounds like a good idea for a fund raiser. Does anyone else have ideas about this?

Great idea Lichen, here are some ideas to get the ball rolling....

Make it a nationwide one-day tree climbing event held at the various groves around the country (and internationally if there is interest).

Set up three levels of flags in a tree, each level reperesents a donation level. The goal is to touch the flag to earn the right to donate. Matching funds per flag touch could be arranged with corporate, business or other sponsors. Individual climbers could get donation pledges from friends which would allow the climber to "pay" for each flag they touch. The more pledges they get the more flags they can try for.

For the first level it would be a couple bucks per flag touch and there would be multiple flags reachable by first time facilitated climbers.

Level two would be a little tougher to get to and there would be less flags available, reachable by climbers with the ability to repitch. The donation amount is increased for the intermediate level flags.

Level three would be very challenging and would be a substantial amount donated per touch. Maybe only 3 flags available. A climber would have to be skilled and have raised enough in pledge money to touch the top level flags.

Any climber is free to donate their own money to their pledge cache of course.

There is no emphasis on speed to reach a flag, if you take all day to reach the toughest flag then you've earned the right to turn in pledge money and hopefully get matching funds from sponsors.

Feel free to revise, refine or reinvent, this is just to get things started
-moss

Great idea Moss! Completely different then what I was envisioning. I remember back in my early days when we would go around and collect pledges from the neighbors for the Jerry Lewis Telethon. We would then hit the skating rink and see how many hours we could skate, with only a 10 min break every hour. We raised money by how many hours we skated. ex.$2.00 per hour
I was thinking something along those lines. Perhaps see how many hours a climber could stay aloft in a 24 hour period with or without a treeboat or supplies. The donators would pay per hour that their climber was up and about. They could even come by and cheer them on. Perhaps we could make this a local community event and get all kind of sponsors, the skys the limit.
Just an idea, I'd love to hear more ideas.

Great ideas! How about a pouch with colored tokens at each station? The tokens could be simple wood slivers colored differently to represent how high and at what difficulty level the climber tried for.

This could be somthing the professional climbers could get into, especially if some of the tokens or touch flags were difficult to reach. Maybe a bonus could be awarded to climbers that could make it in fewer pitches.

Who else has ideas?

I like the token in a pouch idea, gives the climber something tangible to bring back down to show they reached the spot.
-moss