Joseph L. Murphy, Photographer/Writer, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation

The hand-painted, faded sign outside the town’s water and sewer department screams of irony. It reads, “This little town is like heaven to us. Don’t drive like hell through it.”

In Oakville, Iowa, there’s no one driving fast these days. Even driving itself isn’t possible in many places with buckled roads filling the landscape and water logged streets in other stretches.

On June 14th, the historic flood of 2008, swamped Oakville with water as high as 5 to 7 feet rushing through the downtown. The sheer force of the swollen Iowa River, caused the levee outside of town to burst open, unleashing torrents of water into this low-lying farming community with a population of about 400.

Joseph L. Murphy, Photographer/Writer, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation

Three weeks later, the Iowa River has yet to fully recede in Oakville. The dank smell of mildew permeates the air. And swarms of mosquitoes and mayflies have taken over some blocks.

Homeowner Kerry Hale is ready to pack up and leave…forever. “To rebuild a place like this….it’s not worth the hassle.” Hale is one of dozens of residents who signed a petition to encourage a federal buyout of the homes here.

Many of the petitioners say they’re living in limbo. Their homes are wrecks, but they say they can’t afford to leave unless their property is deemed to be in the flood plain. “To have it known that you are definitely in the flood plain, why would you want to spend so much money to have it happen again” questioned Hale.

Joseph L. Murphy, Photographer/Writer, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation

But others aren’t ready to give up just yet on a town that’s been around since the early 1800’s. “I’m staying. This is home. Nowhere to go but here,” stressed homeonwer Kirk Swanson.

As determined as Swanson is to rebuild, even if the federal government doesn’t buy out Oakvile, starting over will not be easy, given all the mold stained homes and crop land lost. Mind you, if too many residents here leave, the tax base could dry up. But Swanson is undettered. “It doesn’t matter if I have to put in a septic system or a well, or whatever, I am staying.”

At this point, there’s no guarantee the town won’t flood again. And yet, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is spending more than 800,000 dollars for a temporary fix for Oakville, on the levee that broke just west of town.

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With some of our stories, you’re asked to dig deep and scrape up some “dirt” on someone or something.

Then, there are the times, when you’re asked to get dirt-y.

Today, is one of those dirty days. The location: Green Bay, Wisconsin. The place: a dairy barn. The story: cows that sleep on waterbeds.

Now, before you city slickers laugh out loud, this is serious stuff for the dairy farmer.

A content cow produces more milk, Alan Tauscher tells me. “Happy, healthy cows are where we make our money,” stresses Tauscher, who runs this second generation dairy farm with two of his brothers. “A cow that is not at peak health is stressed and is not gonna produce as much milk as a cow that is a comfortable relaxed animal.”

About 6 years ago, Tauscher introduced water beds to the 250 cows which comprise his heard. He estimates that his cows have been producing about 500 extra gallons of milk annually since the installation of these beds.

The beds themselves first started showing up in the U-S in the late nineties…the technology borrowed and modified from dairy farmers in Europe. The mattress, with its thick rubber skin, is able to accommodate the weight of a cow, which in some cases, tops 15 hundred pounds.

Most bosses frown on idleness, but the Tauschers seem to get giddy when their herd is laying down. The reason: more blood circulates through the udder when a cow is at rest. And the greater the circulation….down there…the more milk a cow produces.

Two of the many reasons I flat out love my profession: we get to meet some of the kindest and most interesting people (like the Tauschers), and I’m always learning fascinating things.

Here’s something else I betcha you may not have known. The next time someone tells you they went cow tipping, don’t believe them. “They were up to something else,” Mark Tasucher, Alan’s brother tells me with a wide grin. Mark says cows are so heavy, and so stable, that there is no way one teenager, or even ten, could take down a cow. He says the only way to get a cow down is to pull her to the ground with a rope. Would love to hear you weigh in on that one! Gotta head back now to the manure piles.

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It’s like a garage sale gone bad throughout much of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Furniture. Appliances. Mattresses. Knick-knacks. You’ll find all kinds of things set out on sidewalks throughout Iowa’s second largest city, unwanted by their owners. But these discarded items, some of them family keepsakes, are not for sale. Instead, they’re headed for the dump, the material victims if you will, of this month’s historic flooding in Iowa, which ravaged much of this state’s second largest city, with a population of 124,000.

Outside the house of Bonnie Pansegrau, friends and family clothed in white, full-bodied haz-mat suits with hospital masks covering their noses and mouths, toss out soggy piles of putrid smelling garbage. Next to the brown, slime stained washer and dryer sits stacks of National Geographic, which Pansegrau’s husband had collected with great care over the years.

In these piles, ironically, you could learn about natural disasters of generations ago, because Pansegrau had collected every edition of the magazine dating back to the early 1920s. The fact that these treasured, lifelong posessions have now become waste in a wasteland, gnaws at Pansegrau’s son, John

“Yesterday, I was having a really bad time,” Pansegrau told me, his voice cracking and eyes welling with tears as he shared a few minutes of time with me. “I’ve called every friend that I know, and they’re coming. But after a while, what do you do? You can’t just keep asking everyone to kill themselves to help. It’s horrific. It really is.”

Pansegrau’s mother evacuated her house last Wednesday. It was only two days ago, that police permitted her re-entry to launch her clean-up. Yet, many of her neighbors have yet to return.

Just a street away, Iowa National Guardsmen are enforcing an order to keep residents out of their homes. On these streets, puddles of brown, fetid water have yet to go away. And there is an unmistakable mark of muck and grime stained on homes, a vestige of the high water mark of the Cedar River, similar to what I encountered in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina.

Many Iowans have called this flood their Katrina. John Pansegrau says the TV images cannot convey the enormity of this natural disaster.

“I watched Katrina on t-v. And you’re like, Wow! That’s terrible. But you don’t sit and see what you’ve played with 45 years ago come floating out of a basement. You don’t grab stuff that your father collected all his life. You don’t have all your possessions, all your mother’s Christmas ornaments come floating out of the muck. You don’t understand it. I never did.”

“If somebody told you this was as bad as Katrina, you wouldn’t believe it until you saw it,” stressed Dan Warkel, one of Pansegrau’s neighbors. Warkel and his fiance Christine Knight have lived in their house for 5 years, where the floodwater of the Cedar River filled their basement and pushed a half-foot up into their first floor. Knight says, “We didn’t expect that much water.” They lost scrapbooks and “tons of pictures,” but characterize themselves as emotionally upbeat as opposed to others in this city who seem beat up.

When the Cedar River spilled over it’s banks last week, it submerged 3,900 properties over a 9.2 square mile area of 1,300 blocks in this city.

Warkel says the community response to this tragedy has been incredibly reassuring. He says he’s getting to bond with neighbors, whom he waved to over the years, but said little more.

When the clean-up is all over, he vowed there would be “a big neighborhood block party.” His fiance, chimed in with her own version of what their neighborhood should do. “Throw a garage sale,” she said, where it would free pickings for those Cedar Rapids’ residents who came across something they once owned. “No money. If it’s yours, take it.”

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Kids experience all kinds of new things during college. But how many students can say they’ve lived through a flood the National Weather Service says happens once every 500 years?

Some of the coeds at the University of Iowa can now say so. The President of the University, located in Iowa City, Iowa has called this historic flooding the greatest threat in the 161 year history of the University.

The Iowa River, which crested at 31.5 feet over the weekend damaged 16 buildings on campus, some with 8 feet of water inside.

“It’s really hard to see this,” Reginia Bailey told me. Bailey is the mayor of this beautiful, progressive city, where the Iowa River customarily runs through it in picturesque fashion. Not anymore. “We saw this 15 years ago. It’s hard to see it again.”

One of the misconceptions about this bout of flooding is that when you hear a river has crested, or hit its high water mark, it doesn’t mean the water is quickly going away. In the case of Iowa City, Mayor Bailey says it could be another 7 to 10 days before the Iowa River drops to a level below the river’s previous high mark, which was set during the then-record flood of 1993. Meantime, many cities along the Mississippi River in southeastern Iowa are expecting to see record crests of the Mississippi later this week.

The ubiquity of water in Iowa is expected to cost the state billions of dollars. Lives have been lost. Buildings have been ruined, but the resolve of so many in Iowa remains strong, such as pastor Jeff Gilmore.

For the last 17 years, Gilmore has been with the Parkview Evangelical Free Church in Iowa City, which has been swallowed by the Iowa River, with water at least 10 feet high surrounding the building. (I know this because there was water in the church’s parking lot right up to the bottom of a basketball rim. And basketball rims are typically 10 feet high). The church is one of the largest in the city with 1800 members.

To say that Gilmore is attached to his church might be an understatement. He’s raised 6 kids in this church and officiated the wedding of his mother and step-father at this church. But his ties appear to transcend material bonds. I asked him whether he is depressed about the fate which has befallen his church. He responded, “”A church is about its people. Not the building.” He went on to say, “The building just houses memories, which are not going away.”

For the foreseeable future, Gilmore’s congregation will be “a mobile church.” He’s holding services at a nearby high school.

This past weekend, his Sunday sermon focused on this historic flood. He called it, “How to Face Trials and Tribulations and Emerge Victorious”

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It took generations to build Parkersburg, Iowa. It took only seconds to obliterate it.

Sunday afternoon, one of the deadlier tornadoes in Iowa history chewed up much of the this proud, farming community, killing four people in Parkersburg and two in nearby New Hartford. “This town is not just torn up. It’s gone,” stressed Butler County Sheriff Jason Johnson.

Johnson’s home was one of more than 400 damaged here. Another 220 buildings were destroyed including the town’s high school, its sole grocery store and its only gas station. “It’s catastrophic,” Johnson told me as he reflected on the damage. “It’s amazing how much energy this storm had.”

The National Weather Service has completed its preliminary damage survey of this tornado, and its data is staggering. It estimates that this twister spun on the ground for more than a hour, leaving behind a swath of damage 43 miles long. At one point, the tornado swelled to 1.2 miles wide and packed winds greater than 165 miles per hour. The assessment of the wind speed, however, may increase significantly when weather officials release their final report on this tornado.

Perry Bernard says the twister tried to suck him out of his home as he huddled in his basement with his family. “I was on top of my wife and kids with the pillows, trying to hold them down. And I could feel it start to pull me out. So, I just braced on to whatever I could.”

The tornado stripped Bernard’s home to its foundation. His family lost nearly everything. Yet the family was able to find some family photos, which his wife, Adriene tightly clutched as she talked to me about surviving this storm. “We’ve got our wedding pictures, our baby pictures, and those are the most important things. They’re irreplaceable.” “And, we’ve got our lives,” Perry Bernard interjected with a slight smile.

Coincidentally, the town installed an additional early warning tornado siren in Parkersburg less than two weeks ago. Firefighter Lean Thorne told me federal funding happened to be available, and there was a concern in this town, that as it grew in population, some parts of the community might be out of range to hear the existing tornado siren. “This community has a lot of pride. It will rebuild,” Thorne told me.

When covering natural disasters over the years, it is mind-boggling to imagine how victims can think long term as they struggle to live just a day at a time. And yet, shredded American flags have been put up on stripped trees throughout Parkersburg. The fortitude is admirable…the symbolism unmistakeable.

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The state of Indiana is synonymous with a wealth of American staples: high school basketball, Indy car racing, rock legend John Mellencamp.

But it’s been more than a generation since the state has mentioned in the context of another American tradition as being an influential player: the presidential primaries. Yet, with this presidential race, every vote in every state does indeed matter. And in this state, election officials and voters alike are excited to once again have an impact on the presidential nominating process.

Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita told reporters who gathered for his pre-election briefing Monday, that his greatest concern is a “good one” to have: long lines.

“Hoosiers are ready to make their mark on national, state, and local politics during the 2008 Primary Election, an election that may have an impact on national presidential politics for the first time in 40 years.”

Already, the high stakes of this election have resulted in unprecedented absentee turnout, with more than 167 thousand absentee ballots cast statewide. That’s nearly triple the number the Hoosier State usually sees in a primary. And it almost equals the number of early ballots cast in some recent general elections.

Traditionally, Indiana, with its May Primary, has been too late to dance to have an impact in the presidential primaries. In the past 10 presidential races, each party’s nominee had been selected before the state’s spring primary.

This time around, because the Democratic race is so close, the state’s 30,000 poll workers have gotten hours of extra training. And every first-time voter in Indiana, a total of about 160,000 Hoosiers newly registered to vote since the state’s November municipal election, has received a voter tip-card in the mail from Indiana’s Secretary of State.

One of the top election officials in Indiana’s most populated county says the excitement surrounding this election is unlike anything she’s ever witnessed.

“It’s going to be an election we haven’t seen. Not only the increased interest in voters. But also you the media. We have national exit polling companies coming to our community that we have never seen in my lifetime,” Marion County Clerk Beth White told me.

Polls for most of the state stay open until 6 pm eastern. But some of the counties in the heavily populated northwestern part of the state near Chicago, which are on central time, don’t close until 7 eastern. Pollsters say these urban counties could be significantly influential as to who wins Indiana.

But at the end of the day, many political observers say it won’t be Democrats deciding whether Senator Obama or Clinton take this state, but Republicans and Independents. The reason: Indiana has an open primary, meaning Republicans and Independents can cross over and cast a Democratic ballot.

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American Airlines handed cookies and juice today to its customers at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, but these snacks weren’t provided by flight attendants on planes, rather by ticket agents inside the carrier’s terminal. This wasn’t a part of some kind of promotion for the world’s largest airline, but a small gesture of goodwill in an effort to save face with tens of thousands of stranded passengers nationwide. Yet, for some, it seems, cookies and juice just aren’t going to cut it!

“This is ridiculous. This should have happened a long time ago,”stressed an agitated Nicole Ferrera, in referring to American’s decision to ground 500 flights yesterday, another 850 already today, in order to re-inspect wiring on board the workhorse of its fleet: the MD-80. About half of American’s flights use the MD-80, mostly out of Dallas-Fort Worth and here in Chicago. This is American’s second round of mass cancellations in fewer than two weeks for wiring inspection failures.

American is apologizing for the disruption and footing the bill for things like hotels and meals. But that’s failed to satisfy many weary travelers. “We’re very frustrated and I feel hot … and sick” said a nine-week pregnant Ferrera as she sipped a cup of American provided juice with her husband, Phil, by her side, carrying their son Anthony, who is nearly two years old himself.

Having two little ones myself with twins on the way, I couldn’t help feel terrible for the Ferreras, who took a 90 minute bus ride this morning from Beloit, Wisconsin to catch a flight to Dallas for the 30th birthday party of Nicole’s sister. There’s a baptism this weekend too, and the Ferreras are the godparents. As of this hour, little Anthony seems to be blissfully unaware of this travel fiasco. He has his American airlines provided juice and his cookies … and his pacifier.

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One Detroit City Council member is calling it a “constitutional crisis:” a City Hall scandal involving sex, text, and the mayor of one of America’s largest cities.

Both daily newspapers have called on Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to resign from office for the good of the city. But Motown’s Mayor refuses to go, at least for now, creating a political power struggle in city of 900,000, a city which for decades has struggled with poverty, blight, and crime … recently earning the dubious honor from Forbes magazine as the “The Most Miserable City in America.”

Kilpatrick, 37, is a father of three with immeasurable political skills. He is the youngest African American to be a leader of any party in the Michigan Legislature, and the youngest person ever to be mayor of this city. He’s a hulk of a man, a former college football lineman and ex-team captain at Florida A&M, standing 6′5″, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 lbs. His figure notwithstanding, during my numerous interviews with the guy, I’ve found him to be an engaging and outgoing man…a guy who once wore a diamond studded earring as mayor … a guy with such a gift for gab that the Detroit press once nicknamed him “The Hip Hop Mayor.”

His flashy ways and widely reported partying have been scrutinized by local media from the get-go, even though he succeeded in cleaning up some of the most impoverished neighborhoods, brought business to downtown Detroit, and launched campaigns to rid the streets of guns. But his good work seems long forgotten in Motown, with foes and even former supporters, calling for his resignation. As one of his most biggest campaign contributors told me, “This guy could have been mayor for life. But instead, he screwed us all.”

On the surface, this story might just seem like another sex scandal … another politician falling from grace … but let me tell you why this is far from a provincial “affair.”

Michigan has the highest unemployment rate of any state in the nation. As Detroit goes…so goes Michigan…so goes the U.S. auto industry based here in Detroit and its suburbs. Kilpatrick claims he’ll be able to carry out business as usual. But so many people here tell me it’ll be tough for anyone here to focus on anything other than this City Hall scandal, potentially meaning long decaying Detroit might continue to suffer.

(Photo courtesy of Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office)

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“There’s no such thing any more as a 100 year flood.”

Jeff Snider told me those very words a few days before this week’s historic rise of the Meramec River, just outside St Louis.

Snider owns a real estate business in Pacific, Missouri, a quaint “city” with an apt name this week as it took on oceanic qualities.

It’s the third time this place has seen water swamp its downtown since 1982, when they saw a record crest of the Meramec of more than 33 feet.

Come midnight-ish is when the river is expected to crest this time around, and it’s predicted to do so around 31 feet.

It’s mind-boggling to think, given all the water, that Pacific isn’t experiencing a record flood. That said, not far away, they’re forecasting that the St Louis suburbs of Eureka and Valley Park may indeed see the Meramec at unprecedented heights.

In most places, the Meramec and dozens of other swollen rivers nationwide now are flowing without challenge … essentially swallowing homes and businesses. But so far, Jeff Snider has put up a formidable fight. He’s surrounded his business with a four-foot high wall of more than 10,000 sandbags. Right now, he’s dry and he intends to keep it that way.

Here’s a photo of of my tireless crew, hard at work in the Meramec, as well as a few pics of downtown Pacific.

A few of my Fox colleagues asked me this week a question similar to this. “Where did you get those waders?” The short answer: I don’t know.

After nearly nine years with Fox, I’ve covered my fair share of flooding. Same goes for my colleagues. So, the bureau “owns” three sets of waders which we take with us when covering flooding.

They’re an essential piece of equipment when on assignment with this stuff, enabling us to get some of the up-close shots you won’t see other places.

Also helping the cause … we often travel with high-tech wireless equipment, which affords us the luxury of ample room to roam.

Typically, when you watch the “live shots” on the news, the camera and the reporter are attached by a complicated, often long, web of cables. And you’re limited in your ability to move depending on the amount of cable. But when you are working in a wireless world, it’s a wonderful place to be, at least for me. But it drives our satellite truck operators batty at times, because the signal can’t shoot through buildings and tends to encounter interference in city settings.

Anyway, I’ve babbled on long enough, but I got a tad carried away sitting in the longest traffic back-up I’ve ever experienced. The Meramec has shut down all but one lane of the interstate on the way to our hotel, bringing traffic to a near crawl.

(And I actually thought the Meramec had released it’s grip on me when we packed up for the night more than an hour ago!)

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Sometimes when you cover the news you end up becoming a part of it.

That was the case this morning in Jefferson County, southwest of St. Louis. I was sent here to cover flooding, with rivers in the area expected to crash at record or near-record levels later in the week, after a winter of heavy snow and a week of unprecedented rain.

• Dramatic Coverage of the Flood Damage in the Midwest

While searching for a live shot location, near the city of Eureka, Mo., we went in search of an area someone told us had high water. We came upon a sign that said Road Closed. We drove up a nearby road so we could turn around, but decided to instead stop there to set up our cameras.

As soon as we got out of the trucks, my photographer Dutch Wargo asked me if I heard something.

“What?” I asked.

“Someone is yelling for help!”

Sure enough, I did hear a woman yelling for help. Dutch pulled his camera out, zoomed in on the river, and we saw a car partly submerged. Right about that same time, a resident from a nearby farm ran up, waving her arms. She was awakened from her sleep when she heard the same cries we did. Within seconds, rescue personnel showed up. They got a call and didn’t know exactly what was going on, so we directed them down the road to where the car was submerged … where someone was trapped in the water.

About 15 minutes later, a canoe came with rescue personnel, wearing life vests, ready to search for the woman. We were told that this river, named the Big River, had been rising a foot and a half per hour today. We got on the scene at 6:30 am — a rescue worker said they did a road check at 2:30 am, and that the roads were passable.

After a few tense minutes, we were told the woman had been rescued. I didn’t see her until later … and we’ll tell you more about it in a bit.

Meanwhile, as the river rescue is happening, another nearby resident came up to us in a panic.

Christine Ellis’ pickup truck (see photo) got stuck in the river outside of her house. She decided to evacuate her house when she still could, and packed her 65-year- old mother, furniture and pets into her truck that was connected to a horse trailer.

• Watch an interview with Christine Ellis

She gunned it — but got stuck about 20 yards out in front of her house. Slowly, the water rose into the pickup truck. They were all stuck there – air temperature was 40 degrees and the water temperature was 40 to 45 degrees. Christine and her mother sat there for an hour until fire and rescue personnel pulled her out.

At first, Christine couldn’t be more elated — she made it out, her mom made it out and her pickup made it out. Shortly, the story took a sad turn.

As we were interviewing Christine, she went back of the horse trailer to check on her pets. Her parrots made it out OK, her Saint Bernard made it out … but sadly, most of her animals did not. Five chickens, three dogs, three cats and a quail drowned in the water.

Christine’s frail 65-year-old mother hobbled to the truck with a cane. When she learned of the death of the animals, it was one of the most jarring and upsetting things I’d ever seen. This elderly woman screamed, “No, not Bubba!!!!”

She then preceded to give her beloved pet dog CPR and chest compressions for 15 minutes – a dog whose eyes were fixed in a glassy stare of death and tongue hanging out. We finally had to tell the woman, “Dear, they’re gone.”

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The Jay Leno show. Jimmy Kimmel Live. Face it, most of you out there will never appear on one of these shows. But I have the distinction, dubious in my case, of being on BOTH shows the same night. I can laugh about it all now. But I couldn’t at the time.

Rewind time here with me if you will to September of 2003. The network sent me to Virginia Beach, Virgina to cover Hurricane Isabel, which at one point, if my recollection serves me correctly, was classified as a major hurricane, exceeding category 3 strength. As Isabel approached land however, she quickly fell apart. And by the time the storm got to Virginia Beach, Isabel was barely at hurricane strength, with wind gusts hovering around seventy miles per hour. That said, a weak hurricane is still a HURRICANE, and I wanted to demonstrate the power of these storms to our viewers. So, I put some protection over my eyes in the form of goggles, and then ventured in between two buildings on live TV, informing the audience I was about to go into a wind tunnel, so that our viewers could see the strength of Isabel for themselves.

It was not a pretty TV moment. To many out there, it was a snippet straight out of Comedy Central. I not only had trouble standing upright, I had to fight to keep on my pants, and I said so on the air. Some of the “omniscient” TV critics of America would later assail me for what they characterized as a made-for-TV charade. But a lot of people seemed to get a good laugh at my expense.

The day after the storm, my wife called me in my hotel room to tell me that this video snippet had been played on Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel. My response was something like this: “I don’t care. More than 30 people died in this storm. And millions of people don’t have electricity at this moment. I don’t understand why people are making fun of all of this.”

It’s only now that can I laugh about Isabel. And like it or not, it’s been one of the more talked about moments of my career. Heck, even the folks of the FOX Fan web page put together a special spread on the incident. Check it out here. What are your thoughts?

Don’t get me wrong, I do indeed enjoy a good laugh. I just don’t like it to be at the expense of those who are vulnerable. That’s why I think some of my most memorable work at FOX, personally speaking, has come amid situations of incredible hardship for those impacted.

1) Hurricane Katrina. Best way to describe it might be to rip a quote from a blog I filed from New Orleans during the first Mardi Gras after Katrina. Here’s what I wrote at the time.

“Saturday, February 18, 7:30 a.m. —“The Good. The Bad. And the Ugly.” Sure, it’s a classic Clint Eastwood flick, but in my case, I tell people I have covered Katrina in reverse order: the ugly, the bad, and the good. Including the hurricane itself and its catastrophic misery, as this is my fifth trip to New Orleans. In the six months since the storm, I have probably logged about two months here, two months I will never forget.

The Ugly

I have seen the desperate wade through a chest-high stew of water, in the searing late summer heat, with squealing infants on their backs. I have seen guns brandished by people who were not members of the law — they certainly weren’t protecting their property or defending their lives in that empty Ryder truck — and with that assault rifle pointed our way. And I have seen men and women with badges, aimlessly walking through a night of absolute darkness, with supermarket carts full of their few salvageable possessions. Then, there was the bedraggled middle-aged man, whose face I will never forget, who took an empty jug, dipped it into the ornamental pond outside a hotel, and parted his lips as he brought to his mouth that jug filled with the dark filth of a liquid that had survived the same hurricane he did. We stopped the inevitable.”

Here are two more Katrina related blogs of mine if you care to read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185371,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185702,00.html

2) Another story that’s up-front and center for me, encased in that oval dome above my neck: Last summer’s conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Hezbollah. Best way to reflect on that experience, might be to dig up a snippet from one of my blogs from then. The date was August 11th. I filed this from Kiryat Shmona, Israel.

“It was a hurried conversation with Mom. I tried to assure her I was okay. It’s a good thing she’s on vacation and far away from her TV. I don’t think she’d be able to stomach the reality of this war, or at least my reality. The air raid siren wailed. I hung up, and raced up the stairs.

Flak jacket. Check. Helmet. Check. Time to hustle out the door.
It happened in an instant.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz. The unmistakable and violent sound of an incoming Katyusha rocket screamed over my head. There was no time to think — just barely enough time to dive. BAM! I don’t remember the next few fractions of a second, as I dropped to the ground, but I do remember picking myself up off the pavement.
It was the closest of calls. A hit 200 yards away. Smoke poured out of a building. Adrenaline coursed through my body.”
Anyway, this journey together in the blog world should be an interesting one. I’m always flattered when viewers take interest in my work and reach out with comments. Good or bad, it doesn’t matter. I’ll enjoy interacting with you. After all, thick skin is mandatory in my industry, a career choice where you NEVER want to get caught with your pants down!

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