Hurricane Rita

Beyond Katrina Offers Help and Healing via Online Gathering

Free Teleconference to Focus on “The Work”

BATON ROUGE, La. (March 7, 2007) “Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane Disaster & Recovery” is sponsoring two free teleconferences for survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to learn how to use The Work of Byron Katie, a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that is helping people all over the world find a greater sense of well-being in context of life challenges, such as hurricane recovery. In this teleclass facilitated by Dr. Maggie Carter, PhD., participants will have many opportunities to fully experience the effectiveness of The Work and learn how to apply it to everyday situations in their own lives. The free teleconferences are scheduled for March 15 and March 22 from 7 to 8 p.m. CDT.

“The Work" is one of the most powerful methods ever devised to end human suffering,” explained Margaret Saizan, founder of the “Beyond Katrina” blog at www.hurricane-katrina.org. “As a south Louisiana resident myself, who rode out the storm only to face the devastation of stalled recovery efforts and endless bureaucratic red tape, this method has helped me reshape my mood and focus on a more positive approach to solving the problems regardless of who is to blame.”

Though the storms hit Louisiana and the Gulf Coast more than 18 months ago, survivors and the bureaucracy of the local and federal governments have slowed down, if not stalled, in efforts to move on.

“We think suffering thoughts all day long and live our lives as though these thoughts are actually true, added Dr Carter. “But there is a way out of the resulting sadness, anger, frustration and fear. It’s The Work. I have found no other tool that is as simple and has such insightful results.”

The online community that engages daily with each other via “Beyond Katrina” continues to examine the impacts of the storms and seek to develop transformational change through this crisis. Saizan is creating a “Beyond Katrina Survivors Newsletter" to further reach out to those adversely affected by the storms and to promote personal healing and recovery issues. She has witnessed a great need for a positive reference and connection among these survivors through the active, online forum at her blog everyday. What began as casual observers interested in finding out any information on the storm has become a forum for sociologists, geologists, architects, authors, and photographers hoping to enact cultural change and policy reform, and with this teleclass and the newsletter, improve their personal futures for the best.

The free teleconference will be held March 15 from 7-8 p.m. CDT and March 22 from 7-8 p.m. CDT. Attendees simply need to call 218-486-1300 PIN 745633 at the time of their choice and be prepared to be transformed. They do not need to register in advance.

About Margaret Saizan

Margaret Saizan (www.margaretsaizan.org) is a new media publisher, personal/ organizational coach, and community activist. The Baton Rouge La. native became a blogger during the largest natural disaster in  history – Hurricane Katrina.  A graduate of Newfield Network, one of the best regarded international coach training schools, Margaret focuses on empowering leadership and facilitating action during transition, crisis, and disaster as the pathway to new vision. www.hurricane-katrina.org and Big Vision Media aspire to ignite wise action, new vision and positive change through transformational media.

About Maggie Carter:

Maggie Carter, PhD. (www.maggiecarter.com) is a personal/organizational coach and two-time graduate of Byron Katie’s School for The Work.  In her professional life she has worked as an educator, a director of staff development, a director of human resources, a consultant to organizations, a master facilitator and trainer and personal life coach. She continues to work with individuals, groups and organizations to facilitate positive change and explore new possibilities. Dr. Carter holds a Bachelor of Arts in education, a Master’s in reading and linguistics and a Doctorate in staff development, adult learning and leadership. She is also a graduate of the Institute of Life Coach Training.

About The Work

The Work consists of four questions and a turnaround, which is a way to experience the opposite of what you believe. The Work applies to people of all walks of life and is currently being used by coaches, therapists, social workers, healing practitioners, and others who work in the mental health field as well as people who work in business, education and church communities. For more visit www.thework.com.

Download the_work_flyer.doc

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Photographer Tells Visual Story of Hurricane Rita

Beyond Katrina” Contributor Remembers the “Forgotten Storm”

BATON ROUGE, La. (Dec. 18, 2006) Matthew White, a New York native who has lived in and documented the unique beauty of Louisiana since 2000 and contributor to “Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane Disaster & Recovery,” goes beyond the eastern Gulf Coast to recount the devastation of Hurricane Rita pictorially. White’s haunting photographs and personal memoir now featured on www.hurricane-katrina.org are a powerful witness to the 2005 storm, which hit Louisiana’s southwest coastline three weeks after Hurricane. The area has even drawn interest from the White House. Former President George H. W. Bush will visit Cameron Parish this Wednesday, Dec. 20 to present $2-million to South Cameron Memorial Hospital which is rebuilding from  Hurricane Rita. 

“While the world focused on the catastrophe that was Hurricane Katrina, many in the national media have ignored what happened a few weeks later but was equally as life-changing for the formers, fisherman and residents of Louisiana’s southwest region,” explained White. “If the images inspire people to care about these places, then it might increase its chances of being preserved. When readers see the Louisiana coast for the paradise that it is, I believe they’ll care about saving it.”

Hurricane Rita slammed the Texas-Louisiana border on Sept. 24, 2005, as a category three hurricane. Rita was the fourth-most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita caused $10 billion in damage on the Gulf Coast.

White’s two-part series of photos focuses on the aftermath in Cameron and Vermillion Parishes. White hopes these images will create an emotional response; a sense that the viewer is there experiencing it – the silence, the solitude, along with some kind of respect for all the history of the area.

“Three weeks after I began blogging about Katrina, I, like countless others, kept a close eye on the approaching Rita,” explained blogger Margaret Saizan, “Beyond Katrina” creator. “The biggest news that resulted from the storm were the traffic jams as people fled the Houston-Galveston areas and the fact that it wasn’t as bad as Katrina.”

Though federal officials had learned some lessons from the chaos of Katrina and response to the damaged areas was handled more effectively, seven deaths are attributed directly to the storm. Three Cameron Parish communities – Holly Beach, Hackberry and Cameron – were essentially destroyed. The cities of Lake Charles, Moss Bluff, Sulphur, Westlake and Vinton, all in Calcasieu Parish also suffered heavy damage.

Since Saizan’s first posting on Aug. 28, 2005, hundreds of thousands of readers from more than 172 countries have connected with “Beyond Katrina.” The blog was recently awarded the Society for New Communications Research Professional Award. The award honors innovative organizations and professionals who are pioneering the use of social media (i.e., blogs, wikis, podcasts, collaborative tools and other forms of participatory communications) in the areas of marketing, public relations and advertising, politics, entertainment, academics, and community and cultural development.

“We’ve had incredible feedback on the photo essay series we began in early October. We hope to bring that same consciousness to what happened after Katrina,” added Saizan. “The name Rita has been retired and will never be used again for an Atlantic hurricane, but we can’t let its effects fade from our memories.”For Saizan, White is just the latest in a series of talented professionals who help her, as a citizen journalist, recount what happens in real time and real perspective.

White hopes to publish his collection of south Louisiana photos as a testament to a land full of culture, beauty and resilience. Until that memoir is a reality, you can view White’s collection at http://rigolets.blogspot.com/. Fine prints are also available at gymnopedies13@yahoo.com.

About Matthew White

Matthew White is a native New Yorker who made Louisiana his home and his artistic focus in 2000. For five years he photographed nearly every notable location on the Louisiana coast. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita changed the landscape, but not Mathew’s vision and desire to show Louisiana’s unique beauty. While hundreds of others have documented the tragedy wrought by the storms, Matthew’s body of work captures the beauty that the storms of 2005 could not erase. Rather than clichéd incongruity and depressing devastation, Matthew’s photos capture a landscape touched by and triumphing over catastrophe. Matthew shares the same vision as blogger Margaret Saizan, looking “Beyond Katrina,” and lending a silent voice to disaster and recovery. Matthew White’s fine prints are available through gymnopedies13@yahoo.com.

About Margaret Saizan

Margaret Saizan (www.margaretsaizan.org) is a new media publisher, personal/ organizational coach, and community activist. The Baton Rouge La. native became a blogger during the largest natural disaster in U.S. history – Hurricane Katrina. A graduate of Newfield Network, one of the best regarded international coach training schools, Margaret focuses on empowering leadership and facilitating action during transition, crisis, and disaster as the pathway to new vision. www.hurricane-katrina.org and Big Vision Media aspire to ignite wise action, new vision and positive change through transformational media

Calling All Hurricane Rita Impacte dFamilies

Over the past few days I've been writing about Post Santa - www.postsanta.com - a new bulletin board focused on Christmas wish fulfillment for hurricane impacted families.  I am delighted to report that we have heard from many folks who stand ready to adopt a family this Christmas -  They represent people from schools and businesses along the Gulf Coast who are saying, "Where's a family I can adopt, I am ready to do this now"! So while we have adopters lined up, we've yet to hear from families who want to be adopted - and I know there are many folks who could use the extra help this Christmas. And here's the thing.  To make this special the adopters need time.  If the adoption is  a group effort, they need to inform people, collect money, gifts, and get them to their adopted families. So if you are family in need or if you know of a family in need, please let us know. To get the particulars, head to the site.

My 'Adopt a Family' project...

Posted by Leila Teigland:

Some of you who are my close friends already know about this.  But to those that don't... I want to tell you!

For the last ten years or so just after Thanksgiving I get the idea to adopt a family with less for Christmas -- buy them presents, a tree, a turkey...  But time does this trippy thing around this time of year where somehow you wake up one day and bam -- it's Christmas. 

Well I got the idea this year right on schedule.  Only this year I had this additional yearning.  I've been writing a ghost story set in the aftermath of Katrina, and in order to be true to that world, I have immersed myself in, reading every possible piece of anything I could get my hands on.  And what I have encountered... it breaks my heart.

So efficient me combined my two impinging passions.  I connected with Margaret Saizan, the author of this blog, and I've started a web page to connect families in need with the sweet souls willing to give them a little piece of magic.  It really doesn't take much to do that.  Magic is born in good will, presents are just the manifestation of that.

Anyway... I just finished the web design yesterday, which was a trip, because I'm really only an eyelash away from being considered computer illiterate.  I hope the letters will come pouring in. 

Here's the address -- www.PostSanta.com  Obviously it's a content driven site, so until the letters are there it's not really much to look at.  But I'm very proud of it, so I thought I'd share. 

Once I get some letters, I'll post a bulletin that I hope will get passed on from my friends to your friends to their friends...  I plan to adopt at least one family, so anyone that wants to do that with me, let me know!

Lola

Adopt A Hurricane Impacted Family for Christmas

Beyond Katrina community member Lola Teigland is launching a new bulletin board  for matching hurricane impacted families with donors who want to adopt them this Christmas. If you are a family in need or a donor who is willing to help, please head to www.postsanta.com.   Last year's bulletin board was very successful in helping to match donors and donees thanks to the efforts of many of our readers -  we hope this year's effort will be as fruitful!

Blessings This Holiday Season,

Margaret Saizan
Publisher, Beyond Katrina

Beyond Katrina community member Lola Teigland is launching a new bulletin board  for matching hurricane impacted families with donors who want to adopt them this Christmas. If you are a family in need or a donor who is willing to help, please head to www.postsanta.com.   Last year's bulletin board was very successful in helping to match donors and donees thanks to the efforts of many of our readers -  we hope this year's effort will be as fruitful!

Blessings This Holiday Season,

Margaret Saizan
Publisher, Beyond Katrina

Coverage of Hurricane Rita Now at Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane Recovery

Greetings, Margaret Saizan here of Big Vision Media, the publisher of this blog. In spite of Rita's legacy as the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record & $10 billion in aftermath damages to the La./Texas coastal communities,  sadly there has been very little media attention on this devastating storm. Thought leader Matthew White compares Katrina and Rita to Japan's Nagasaki and Hiroshima, suggesting that Katrina's fame is only because it preceded Rita by three weeks. However, as the citizen of a state (La.) which has been severely impacted by both storms,  I aim to do something about the lack of attention on Rita. 

Over at Beyond Katrina: The Voice of Hurricane Recovery, my  award winning blog, White is preparing a two part series on Rita's devastation  (which will debut soon) - see his other photo-essays here. Additionally,  former president George Bush, Sr.  will be touring the region on December 20. I'll to do my part to continue coverage of "Rita" - and in fact to ramp it up a notch.

Admittedly though I have found it difficult to maintain separate blogs on both hurricanes especially since (as far as Louisiana hurricane recovery is concerned), they are both so intertwined. Additionally,  Beyond Katrina has transcended its original intentions having  evolved since its inception into a "voice" for the larger arena of Gulf Coast hurricane recovery. For these  reasons, past coverage of Rita will remain archived here at this blog, while new information will continue on at Beyond Katrina. 

There is a good bit of information about Rita the storm and its early aftermath here, so it is worth a look-see. However, after you've perused the posts here head over to Beyond Katrina for more recent news on Rita recovery - most relevant posts at that blog are  here.

Margaret Saizan
Big Vision Media