The Story of the Van

Here is an open letter I've been passing around. In my next blog, which I'll be publishing soon, I'll tell why I think this is an important event that has a larger impact than just my friends ability to get his van back. I'm trying to dissemenate this letter as far as possible, so if you know of anyone who may find this concerning, please send it their way. Thanks!

To whom it may concern,
I live in Baton Rouge. As of today, the third day after Gus, 85% of the city is still out of power (roughly 350,000 people). The city seems to be at a standstill, but that is not totally out of the ordinary, given the circumstances. What does seem to be out of the ordinary are the stories that we are hearing, or rather, the stories we are not hearing. The local radio stations are asking people to call in for their stories and almost everyone is identical. Everyone is either having power issues or wondering where the nearest FEMA help center is. Not that these aren’t problems that need to be addressed, but surely someone else must have something interesting to say? I know I do, but when I called the radio station, they told me that my story was not the type of story people needed to hear. I’m wondering if that’s really the case, or if something else is going on. Here is my story:My friends evacuated New Orleans and have been staying with us. City officials have been begging citizens to not drive anywhere so that emergency vehicles have easier access to the city, so we decided to walk to a place downtown that we heard was open and serving breakfast. When we returned we noticed that our friends van was no longer in front of our house. Asking around, we learned from our neighbors that the police came by in the hour that we were gone and towed any cars parked on the street. The van was legally parked and we were given no warning or notification. There was not even a note left for us as to who towed it, or why. Eventually we found out that the reason the car was towed was to make way for George Bush and Bobby Jindal’s motorcade. We called the local police but they said they didn’t know anything about cars being towed. We called the city, state, and capitol police, and none of them knew anything either. Finally, we phoned towing companies until we found the one that had towed the van. They told us that the city police had ordered it towed and that we would have to pay $180 to get it back. Additionally, because the car was borrowed from another friend, they said that the owner of the car would have to show valid identification. The owner, however, also evacuated and is currently in Dallas. When we called the city police, they told us to pay the fine and then we might be able to get reimbursed, but seeing how when we had initially called them they had said that they didn’t know anything about the car being towed, we aren’t really sure that we will get reimbursed. I know that my story isn’t getting out. Yesterday evening I watched someone on the news talking about power outages. As he was in the middle of saying that he just saw a bunch of Entergy employees sitting around without working, he was cut off and the channel switched to commercial. I’m not sure what to do. When I finally got through to some friends of mine out of state, their response was “I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I was under the impression that everything there was fine.” Sure, it could be worse, but it is definitely not fine, and there’s no one here that will listen.