On the Anniversary of the Worst Natural Disaster in the US...

I thought I would share the amazing story of one Muslim man living in New Orleans during the hurricane. It is a story of compassion, endurance, patience, and resolve. It also shows the major government failures in bringing help to the beleaguered Gulf region. Although it's a little long, it is definitely worth a read.

I heard a strange noise coming from outside when I woke up so, I went to see what it was. When I looked outside, I saw the water passing in the street . It was moving so very fast, just like a rapid river. It was moving all around my house, and it looked like it was steadily rising. My first thought was the levee had broken. All I could think of was what to do next.

And when you can't imagine that anything worse could happen...

When I entered the area where the phone was, I saw a strange man there. I asked my tenant who he was, and what he was doing here. My tenant said that he was with the search and rescue team, and he needed to use the phone. I told him, "Oh, ok." We heard people outside. My tenant went to talk to them. It was the military. They asked him if we needed water. We told him no thank you, we have some. Then they jumped out the boat, went inside the house with their machine guns, and they were yelling at us to get in the boat. One of the military persons searched the house, for what? Only God knows. They treated us like hard criminals. They asked to see our ID cards, we showed it to them, they didn't even look at it. They only returned it to us. I told them I own this house, and my tenant was trying to prove to them that he lived there. They didn't care. They forced us out by gunpoint.

Read Abdulrahman Zeitoun's full story here.