to family

By

Kerry Whipple

Bean

The Natchez Democrat

Nearly four weeks after Katrina hit New Orleans, Dorothy King of Natchez is still looking for her brother.

More than a week ago she sat in my office with a faxed copy of a photo from the Chicago Tribune, her only clue that Joseph Clayton had survived the storm and the flood that followed.

The black and white fax showed a grainy image of a thin man &045; thinner than King remembered &045; sitting on a porch with a neighbor in the days after the storm, waiting for someone to rescue them.

The fax had passed through the hands of several family members who were frantically calling 800 numbers and searching Internet databases for clues that Joseph Clayton was OK.

So Mrs. King came to us, hoping we could connect the dots between newspapers to find out what might have happened to her brother.

If I felt powerless to help her, that was nothing compared to her desperation.

I did the only thing I could: I made some calls.

I realize that many of you readers who call The Democrat sometimes feel like you’re calls are routed all over the office, but my first call to the massive Chicago Tribune facility went to the wrong building.

I called the main office, then the newsroom, then somehow got directed to the photo department.

There, a very kind man listened to my story and promised to get back to me after he called the reporter and photographer who had worked the story. (He had to track them down; they were taking a deserved few days off after reporting on the horror that was New Orleans in the week after the storm.)

For several minutes, Mrs. King and I sat waiting for word, the same thing she and so many other families had been doing day after day.

When the Tribune’s photo editor called back, he had little news &045; but it was reassuring. The photographer and reporter left before Joseph Clayton was rescued, but they were reasonably sure that rescuers were in the area and that help was on the way for him.

It was a small bit of reassurance, and I’d wanted so much to be able to offer more.

I cannot imagine what it is like &045; the not knowing. So many families were separated by the chaos that followed Katrina, and many people are still looking for family and friends.

But my small experience trying what little I could to help Mrs. King reminded me how important newspapers and other news organizations are in keeping us connected &045; and in reminding us how we are all connected.

There are newspapers in our state publishing on a shoestring and a prayer just to get news to their communities; there are reporters working long hours on TV, in print and on the Web to tell the story of the two hurricanes that have hit the gulf coast in the past few weeks. And as members of communities spread across the country, keeping those connections is more important than ever.

As of Saturday evening, Dorothy King was waiting for confirmation from the Red Cross that her brother had made it to a shelter in Knoxville, Tenn.

And I’m looking forward to a phone call from her that he is safe and sound.

Kerry Whipple

Bean is editor of The Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3541 or by e-mail at kerry.bean@ natchezdemocrat.com.