Hurricane death toll rises

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike have powered their way through this part of the world, and affected the weather elsewhere in the US to a greater or lesser extent. Now it's time to count the cost.

Financially, they've been massively damaging. Initial estimates are that both storms together will cost insurers and the States involved well over $20 billion . . . but the cost in human lives can't be calculated. So far, Gustav has killed 44 people in Louisiana, and Ike killed at least four more. The figures from Texas aren't out yet, but there are so many destroyed neighborhoods in the Galveston area that it's a virtual certainty that more bodies will be found over the next few days. Ike's said to have killed 33 people in the USA by current count.

Seventy-seven lives. Each of those people left others behind. How many are mourning them today? How many families have seen their joint lives disrupted, severed, as one member embarks on that final journey all of us must take one day? The news media are great at providing pictures of destroyed homes, or flooded neighborhoods, but they can't convey or adequately portray the grief of such sudden and devastating loss.

Think of those who mourn tonight, and pray for them.

Peter