I should have stayed on vacation.

SO I have returned from my family vacation on Maui to watch the deep south plunge into chaos and hellish calamity. I cannot express my deep and heartfelt sadness for the victime and their families. I haven't been able to do much more than just read and dissect all of the increasingly horrifying images and accounts coming from the affected towns and cities.

Still it gets worse:

By ADAM NOSSITER, Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS - Storm victims were raped and beaten, fights and fires broke out, corpses lay out in the open, and rescue helicopters and law enforcement officers were shot at as flooded-out New Orleans descended into anarchy Thursday. "This is a desperate SOS," the mayor said.

Anger mounted across the ruined city, with thousands of storm victims increasingly hungry, desperate and tired of waiting for buses to take them out.

"We are out here like pure animals. We don't have help," the Rev. Issac Clark, 68, said outside the New Orleans Convention Center, where corpses lay in the open and the and other evacuees complained that they were dropped off and given nothing — no food, no water, no medicine.

About 15,000 to 20,000 people who had taken shelter at the convention center to await buses grew increasingly hostile. Police Chief Eddie Compass said he sent in 88 officers to quell the situation at the building, but they were quickly beaten back by an angry mob.

"We have individuals who are getting raped, we have individuals who are getting beaten," Compass said. "Tourists are walking in that direction and they are getting preyed upon."

Seems like things in New Orleans are going form bad to worse. It has been reported that the military has been unable to land with supplies at the convention center due to the helicopters being rushed by an unruly mob on the ground. They have had to resort to dropping the food and water in tiny quantities from a hover about ten feet above the crowd. The descriptions of events in the last few hours is truly horrifying. I am running out of things to say.

We need some leadership there. I wish I could say that I had any confidence whatsoever that our government was going to be able to help. They have systematically lost control of the situation. Things might be at atipping point. this says it all:

"Hospitals are trying to evacuate," said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesan, spokesman at the city emergency operations center. "At every one of them, there are reports that as the helicopters come in people are shooting at them. There are people just taking potshots at police and at helicopters, telling them, `You better come get my family.'"

How much longer do you suppose we have before the first full scale riots break out in the flood ravaged cities and towns of the destruction zone?

I'm very afraid for my country at this moment. This goes far beyond the political leanings that I might have but you can bet your ass that I wil be holding some people responsible for whatever happens.