A reader is trying to find Michelle Lollis and her family, who were either guests or employees of the Royal Sonesta. Anyone know where their folks were evacuated to?

As I write this, I’m watching images of a city I no longer recognize, New Orleans. Death, destruction, debris, despair, and debilitating rage have taken over her once-gracious streets. Hospital workers are dropping in their tracks due to dehydration and exhaustion, with supplies and time running out, while people shoot at helicopters bringing relief. I can’t even begin to mourn the people who have died, who have lost everything, who have been displaced to far-off cities. The enormity of human loss is too big to get my mind around just yet.

So I find myself mourning the city itself. I wonder what happened to the Blue Dog gallery on Royal Street, Mother’s café, the incomparable Cafe du Monde. Even if that laissez les bon temps rouler city we tourists and conventioneers knew and loved was only part the reality of the place, it was our vision of New Orleans, and we cherished it.

Now I’m afraid that New Orleans never again be the place I fell in love with—and the place I fell in love. OK, I have to tell this story. Back in March of1992, when I was the editor of an environmental chemistry magazine, the Pittsburgh Conference, a huge scientific convention I regularly attended, rotated through New Orleans.

One of my then-colleagues talked me into going with her to a birthday party for her boyfriend’s boss one night during the conference. As our group roved through the French Quarter, causing trouble and having a bit too much fun, I noticed that the birthday boy was kind of great. Then the next night, we fortuitously ran into each other on Bourbon Street, and ended up talking into the wee hours. Even though he lived in Massachusetts and I lived in Colorado, even though I was determined to stay commitment-free, New Orleans worked her magic. What began as a spark turned into an enduring flame. We’ve now been married for 12 years.

The thought that PittCon may never again rotate through New Orleans, that my husband and I may never again have a jazz brunch at Brennan’s, that New Orleans may never again be the New Orleans I knew, breaks my heart. What is happening to her people, breaks my soul. Please do anything you can to help the Gulf Coast recover.

I’ll be posting links to all sorts of resources as soon as I can.

Sorry to be so quiet today—I have no kidding 50 things backed up I want to talk about. But instead I spent today wresting with getting some magazine production done (we ship to the printer next week) and building a new site for Katrina-related news and resources. In the meantime, check out what our sister magazine, Special Events, has done. There are listings of people willing to open their homes to industry refugees, positions open, stories from survivors, just some amazing stuff.

Of course, we want to continue what they started. If you have ways you want to help your colleagues in hurricane-hit areas, stories to share, or resources you can provide, drop me an e-mail. As soon as I get the site up, there will be a way to post things yourself. Hopefully, that’ll be tomorrow.

updateChange in plan. I created some new categories for face2face instead of setting up yet another place to go, since I seem to be obsessing about Katrina-related news anyway. Changes to the site coming shortly. And I’m now up to 87 items I want to post…

This hadn’t even crossed my mind, but it probably has yours. Anyway, if you have a mailing going out in the near future, know that, effective immediately, the U.S. Postal Service is not accepting any periodical or standard mail destined for certain areas in Mississippi and Louisiana, including New Orleans. I’d suggest upi suppress these addresses on your mailing lists until mail service is restored.

For more information on the specific zip codes impacted, please see the USPS’s latest service posting.

From Steve Hacker with IAEM wants to let you know that organizers with events in the storm-affected region who have to relocate events should contact him by e-mail. IEAM will provide a form to complete that will allow us to distribute the venue replacement request through a network of sources.

Here’s Steve Hacker’s e-mail again.

For anything you want to know about Katrina, check out the Wikipedia entry. For example, I hadn’t heard this:

The hurricane has struck just days before Southern Decadence, a festival which is the second-largest money-maker for New Orleans businesses after Mardi Gras. It is predicted that outside of the obvious costs of the direct effect of the storm, the city will lose millions of dollars in tourist monies because of the cancellation of this festival and others in coming months and years.