I think I have entered the realm of Katrina fatigue. I don't want to see more pictures of people searching desperately for their loved ones. Granted, I have never been that big on human interest stories - I could connect with faceless crowds outside the Convention Center better than I can with stories of people scattered across the country trying to get their families back together. Somehow humanising it makes it so small that it becomes ordinary. People ge separated from their loved ones all the time, teary reunions happen in "ordinary" times. People go to great lengths to house a family made homeless by a tragedy. To me, seeing these stories makes the big picture fade. The scope and scale of destruction is almost incomprehensible. That works. Struggling to get your mind around the scale of things - the difference (and lack of difference) between 80% of New Orleans under water and 60% is something that resonates with me. People trying to carry on with their lives in a flooded city...a city flooded with toxic water. I get that.

One thing that definitely brings on denial is Hurricane Ophelia. What makes matters worse is looking at all the other storms brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. The only thing you can do is block it out.