New Orleans:  Access Denied

Crisis rages screams the headlines today
Chaos in New Orleans deepens dire straits
Poor people...the elderly...mothers with babies wait...and wait
Yet Access Denied is the answer to the only way in or out

Access denied was the initial response
Access denied was the word to those who would help
Access denied because there was no strong chain of command
Access denied while hundreds needlessly die in our great land

Flood waters cover most of the great City of New Orleans:  access denied
Sewage...chemicals....gas leaks....dead bodies pollute the water like parasites
Yet two hundred thousand people are trapped and left behind
As every hour passes, desperation deepens at the wasted loss of life

Access denied was the initial response
Access denied was the word to those who would help
Access denied because there was no strong chain of command
Access denied while hundreds needlessly die in our great land

Crisis Management classes could never prepare
Anyone to even imagine disasters so awful here
The devastation is bigger than any one agency can handle
The United States must unite now to help our own neighbors

Let these people go! passionately cries the reporter on the scene
He's a modern day Moses interceding for the left behind, the least
Elsewhere displaced thousands gather on a dry freeway bridge
Access Denied is the word for them too because they cannot leave

What will become of the millions of homeless Americans?
Will the church of the living God rise up to take them in and save them?

Let us never see this sign standing before the Promised Land:

Access Denied.

--bro. tim pickl
Saturday September 3, 2005 A.D.

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