I am crying as I write.  I've just come home from work.  I feel hopeless.  Some confusion has subsided, but a new problem has arisen.  One of the New Orleans patients coded (for those unfamiliar with nurse talk, coded=began to die, and was not Do Not Resuscitate...in other words, CPR is administered as well as any means at all to save the life).  One nurse stayed in the nurses station and called the hospital while I readied the paper work.  She put the phone down and looked at me, her face as white as a ghost.  I asked her what was wrong.  She shook her head and told me.  The hospital was unable to take our patient.  The hospital was at full capacity, AND had three busloads of people in the parking lot from New Orleans that they were unable to care for.  The same went for every other hospital in our area...all four.  They can't take anyone.  Our patients have to lay there and die.  The people on the buses have no one to care for them.  This sounds brutally honest, but it's the truth.  There's no candy coating for this.

On a better note, school in our parish (Rapides) and the neighboring parish has been closed so that they can send every bus that we have to New Orleans to bring people out.  I-49 is lined up for a couple of miles with buses ready to move out.  Kudos to these bus drivers. 

I haven't decided whether to go to New Orleans tomorrow or to stay and help at work over the weekend.  I'm not sure what to do. 

As of right now, I'm going to bed.