Dear FRONTLINE,

I'm in awe of the determination and hard work of the people in the film. We feel moved to go down to New Orleans to help people work on their homes. Can you post some links to churches or organizations (NO government organizations, please!!) that can connect volunteers with individuals. Working together can accomplish so much more and help people feel a bit less alone in the process. Thank you for reminding us about the plight of our brothers and sisters in New Orleans.

Christine Lupella
Burlington, Wisconsin

FRONTLINE's editors respond:

We asked producer June Cross and her team about volunteer opportunities in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. They have the following suggestions:

Common Ground Relief: One of the many groups that helped Mr. Gettridge rebuild.

ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now): Between 2005 and 2008, ACORN volunteers gutted 3,000 homes.

Union for Reform Judaism Gulf Coast Rebuilding: One of many religious organizations that have played a pivotal role in Gulf Coast rebuilding.

Habitat for Humanity: Former President Carter's homebuilding program has operations throughout the Gulf Coast.

Project 417: A homeless relief organization, Project 417 has also been active in Gulf Coast rebuilding.

AmeriCorps: The national service program created under President Clinton is a good option for younger volunteers.

Have you volunteered on the Gulf Coast? Share your story and with whom you worked.

Dear FRONTLINE,

Ms. Cross has done a beautiful job of conveying this story, and that of others of the Lower 9th Ward. I have just returned from a week in New Orleans as part of a rebuilding mission and was shocked and sickened that three and 1/2 years after Katrina, there is still everything to be done. For those of the Lower 9th, this was not a natural disaster, but a catastrophic failure of engineering, and then of the United States. The determination of those who have returned to reclaim their homes and communities is moving, and a testament to the American spirit.

I am well read and had no idea or concept that so little had changed in parts of New Orleans like the Lower 9th ward. We must all continue to tell these stories until there is nothing left to be done.

Cranford, New Jersey

Dear FRONTLINE,

I will pay closer attention to what's happening in New Orleans, and take some action.

But, most importantly, please tell Mr. Gettridge this: I never had a grandfather, or any elder show me what it was to be a man, until now. I won't forget his courage and what he did for his wife and family ever in my life. I'll try to live by his example.

Sunnyside, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

I just returned home, from my volunteer trip to New Orleans with a group of seven social workers. We volunteered with Habitat Humanity and specifically requested to volunteer in the Lower Ninth Ward area. The destruction was devastating. It was sad to see so many homes STILL in such bad shape after three plus years. It was even more upsetting to visit the tourist areas and see how quickly they had been rebuilt. It was as if Hurricane Katrina only hit certain parts of the city. I really hope more Americans visit this area and lend a hand. I do insist that anyone who wishes to volunteer request to volunteer in areas that were hit the most...the Lower and Upper Ninth Ward! Those living in these areas can not be forgotten. We must help everyone regardless of their social-economic status or the color of their skin.

Michelle Cinque
Albany, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

This is not the first time a major hurricane has devastated an American city. This is not the first time the survivors have lamented the slow response of insurance companies or the government's inability to undo what the storm destroyed. It won't be the last.

My home was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew. I watched first hand the same events unfold as happened with the Katrina recovery. The insurance damage after Katrina was 6 times larger than Andrew. Yet the public money released to the survivors after Katrina was 10 times larger than Andrew. Another difference was that the Andrew survivors didn't blame the president for everything that happened.

What if a major hurricane devastates another American City later this year, like say, Jacksonville. Will we blame Obama for the inevitable slow governmental response to the recovery? Will we blame Obama for the inevitable layers of red tape, the money grab by mid-level managers, or the failure of local authorities to do their jobs? I doubt it. The political consensus that the President was somehow to blame for all of the problems associated with the Katrina recovery is what makes this hurricane event unique.

We will see all of these problems again.

Atlanta, Georgia

Dear FRONTLINE,

Dear Frontline,

I can't afford cable at our home in Lompoc, so I just watched "The Old Man and the Storm" online. Thank you so much to the film maker and PBS! This film, and the Getteridge clan, captures so much about the shattered dreams of millions of Americans, from coast to coast, who are now fighting to keep their homes, keep food in their cabinets, and keep some small flicker of the American Dream alive in their hearts. Greedy, selfish oligarchs like the Bush clan, the Chenny clan, and others have the reigns of power in our nation. They make decsisions based on what's best for those who keep them in power, their rich cronies, like the agency selected for Road Home who gave its executives $2 million bonuses, while Mr. Gettridge was using his own hands to rebuild. From health care to FEMA to the FDIC and beyond, America is rotting from corruption and greed, as badly as the high school shown in the film. We are becoming a nation of haves and have nots. While I am happy the Gettridges are doing better, (only because of their own spirits and the goodness of volunteers), I cannot help but think of the thousands of homes that will never be rebuilt, and the millions of homes now washing away in the storm of foreclosures. We, the people, must demand better. We, the people, need to stop spending money in Iraq to line the pockets of Halliburton, and others, and spend it on rebuilding the lower 9th, helping our middle class and working class neighborhoods from decaying, by really helping homeowners NOW. My only hope is that President Obama's good ideas about rejuvenating America by national WPA-style projects will help all of us who need it, like the Gettridges, and will not be side-lined by greedy privatizing profiteers. America, stand up and demand MORE of your government!

Jasmine Marshall Armstrong
Lompoc/Fresno, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

Herbert Gettridge's story is important and should be told. However, for just once I'd like to see a story about a hard working white family, living in St. Bernard or Lakeview or a Vietnamese family who took it upon themselves to put their New Orleans east community back together with no help from anyone. Families who also lost everything and suffered all the same foolishness at City Hall. The hurricane affected everyone in New Orleans, white, black, hispanic, asian, middle class, poor, rich, plumbers, lawyers, shrimpers, unemployed, etc. This was not a black only issue, although that message is the only thing that people outside of New Orleans ever hear about. How about a balanced story, for once, just once.

New Orleans, LA

Dear FRONTLINE,

My heart is sadden everytime I hear or see anything related to New Orleans(post katrina).I'm from Louisiana, born in Monroe, raised around Rayville, Delco area. I went to school at Mangham high. I cried when I seen this story, cause it reminded me of my parents what they went through to raise 14 of us. There aren't to many words that i could say but my prayers are with you all. keep the faith!! God will deliver.

dewayne worthy
Nashville, TN

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have just watched Frontline's The Old Man and the Storm on PBS tonight. I am still in tears with the freshness of Katrina and Rita's wounds all around. I, like many, have followed Mr. Gettridge since his return; the lone light in the Lower 9th for so long.

I hail from Canada, but the moment I first learned of New Orleans, in my childhood, and from the instant I set foot on Louisiana soil, I knew I'd found home. Since my first vist in 1998, I have returned 13 times, 9 of which have been post-Katrina. I have volunteered, I have brought scads of friends down to experience NOLA and I continue to fight, from my home in Hamilton, Ontario, to bring awareness to the crisis that still holds this fine city in its clutches.

June Cross has brought us a look at reality. I applaud her and her insights and hard work in bringing focus to an on-going plight. Where New Orleans is concerned, any bit of spotlight is ever-necessary. The world has 'moved on' to other destructions and dangers while New Orleans waits, bound in red tape, for her spirit to be freed again. And for this to happen, she needs her soul returned; the souls of those scattered, the souls of those lost and those who are caught in the horror of illness and neglect.

There isn't a day that I don't ache to come back. Not a second that I don't breathe for NOLA. I can only hope that America, finally under new leadership, once again sees and acts on the need for rebirth in its most unique and beautiful city.

Until then, I shed my tears, I do what I can from here and I wait to go back home to the place where my soul is waiting for me... where it waits for all souls to find their way home.

Kate Dion
Hamilton , Ontario Canada

Dear FRONTLINE,

The program was great. Eventhough it focused on the 9th Ward, I think it voiced the frustration of the community. I have been going down since they opened the city after Katrina. I have a cousin who is a retired NO teacher whose house had been under water. She is finally back in her house after evacuating to MS, Cincinnati, Ohio and Mobile. Many of the problems of Mr. Gittridge were hers. Many times she hired workers from the area to do things that were not correctly done. Going down to NO many times since Katrina I had the opportunity to meet with people who either had little distruction or moved to Baton Rouge. The trauma of this devistation effected all. The one of the most recent group that had come down to help were the Starbuck managers. I have heard that not only did they help, but they did the work correctly. Thank you Starbucks.

Barbara Keck
Chicago, Ilinois

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am a firefighter who has made many journeys to NYC to help after 9/11 and was shamed last night that we as a nation haven't put the same effort towards helping folks like Mr. Gettridge and his family. Seems like money was made off these people and little returned. A national disgrace!!

Larry Godbout
Lynn, Ma.

Dear FRONTLINE,

My church, St. Michael the Archangel in Schererville, Indiana just returned from assisting Cahtolic Charities, Operation Helping Hands in the rebuilding process there in New Orleans. We were assigned six project of which we completed five. These projects included drywall and exterior painting.

For many on our mission trip, this was their fourth time returning to New Orleans, with our first visit being in August / September 2006. We had been down assisting with the gutting before the area moved into the rebuilding phase.

The initial reflection on what New Orleans looked like in late August, 2006 which was one year after the storm is that no stores were open. Barely any business provided services and most of the city shut down by ten PM. The destroyed homes in Lakeview, Gentilly, and the Lower Ninth looked just like the day the storm hit. Nothing had been done and the mold and smell permeated everything. Even areas not flodded smelled of decay. Over the two and one half years that have elapsed since, the area seems revitalized! The Brad Pitt homes in the Lower Ninth are a tourist destination, and the business center and French Quarter seem fully recovered.

While it is a sad testament that empty lots with stairways to nowhere proliferate the landscape, there is a sense in the New Orleans peoples that things are on the upswing. The only regrets is that since their recovery is established, the rest ot the country seems to have forgotten about them and how far they still need to go to return to normalcy. Aid in the form of contributions and of manpower such as our church are coming fewer and far removed. They welcome all our help so that the great city of New Orleans can again rise to its former status.

James Koeling
Schererville, Indiana

Dear FRONTLINE,

For June & Julia,

The program was superb. So of course, I'm kicking myself (over and over again) for choosing not to participate. I try my darndest to regret as few things in life as possible, but this is one of those times where it'll be easier said than done.

Honestly speaking, I was distrustful, wary... and afraid - of what the finished product would look like. But you guys did a phenomenal job. I was brought to tears many times throughout the program. I can't describe the feeling, but it was incredible to see my grandfather and the rest of my family so beautifully and accurately portrayed. Thank you.

I've always known that "Daddy Herbert" was a very headstrong and persistent human being, but I guess never realized just how deeply his inner strength ran. I am so very proud of him and so very grateful to you guys for capturing his spirit on film and sharing it with everyone else.

Tracey Gettridge
Dallas, TX

Dear FRONTLINE,

I personally know Mr Gettridge and he always reflected positive inspirations, by his examples of decency and hard word. Thanks pbs for choosing Mr. Gettridge. I will check on Mr Gettridge the next time I'm in new Orleans this coming March 09. Hang on Mr Gettridge. I brought the DVD of The Old Man and The Storm.Leroy Fair JrNinth Warder for Life!

leroy fair
new orleans/houston, la/tx

Dear FRONTLINE,

I watched Frontlines show tonight and felt (again) incredible anger at Bush and his pals. Then I read the letter from laney white and wonder which show she/he watched.The idea of everyone is in this alone is the reason all these Republicans have been voted out of business. Mr Gettridge and his family were incredibly self reliant but yet mr/ms white's incredible anger and hatred show through this beautiful piece.You and similar attitudes are the reason Katrina victims had such a hard time. Peace, prayer and love to all the Gettridges!

Don Smock
Middleton, WI

Dear FRONTLINE,

I graduated from Xavier in 1996. After four years of calling New Orleans home, I feel like I have an understanding of the people there. I've never met people in any other part of the country that have such strong family ties and it is really hard to even conceptualize the mental anguish of separation from family unless you really know a New Orleanean. The story was painful for me to watch on so many levels. Watching this family struggle and sacrifice just to be together when so many Americans are dispassionate about the importance of family was a real wake up call for me. I just kept thinking that I could have done more. The government has never been a savior of poor people or people of color. It is just so obvious that as individuals, as families, we all could have done more.

Serena Muhammad
St.. Louis, MO