The following is an email letter dated Monday, September 5, from Fr Harold Imamshah, Trinidad-born priest of the Diocese of St George's-in-Grenada:

My dear friends,
I'm very touched by the number of you from the Caribbean and other parts of North America , Central America and Europe that have been calling in, and sending in emails of concern about my welfare and that of the people I work with and of the 11 others I had brought with me to Trinidad most recently. Many of you have been sending word through Fr Rochard and my dear mother.

We are all fine in this Central Louisiana area of Pineville, Alexandria and Bunkie (the areas from which our summer missionaries came). New Orleans is in the South Eastern corner of Louisiana and along with Mississippi and parts of Alabama have been hit very badly.

Of the three, New Orleans did not only suffer from the winds of the hurricane but from the overflowing of Lake Ponchatrain , and the breaks in the levee wall in several places. New Orleans is shaped like a bowl and below sea level and many of the buildings have been inundated with the torrents and torrents of water that flowed into the city. Many people drowned and were trapped in the buildings they could not or did not want to vacate.

All of the Catholic churches in every State, and in all of the seven dioceses of Louisiana are housing evacuees in their parish halls and activity centres. Some Catholic schools are also housing evacuating residents of New Orleans in their activity buildings.

The Red Cross, Catholic Charities, Knights of Columbus and all of the Catholic organisations are working round the clock to provide food and shelter and many parishioners have opened their homes to so many who are still in shock.

I am a clinical counsellor, so I spend a lot of time listening, relaying messages to relatives over the phone and helping our prayer group members to bring hopeful words to the bereaved and the despairing.

I live and work at our Maryhill Renewal Center (a diocesan retreat centre) and we are housing 64 Sisters of the Holy Family, one of the headquarters of the Red Cross Relief Workers, and today some Sisters are moving in with 50 or so, special children with various levels of severe mental retardation, with their nurses, staff and equipment.

We in Central Louisiana have been spared and are able to offer quite a lot of help to our unfortunate brothers and sisters of the deeper South.

Together with the help of the Sisters and the Prayer Group here, we are filling up zip-lock bags with toiletries to be distributed to hundreds. With the various youth groups we are providing songs of praise and healing to the many evacuation centers.

The bishops of America are organising a nationwide collection for the hurricane victims and are empowering all of their service organisations to provide whatever is needed.

Bishop Ronald Herzog, Bishop of the Diocese of Alexandria, here, has suspended the demands of the diocesan budget both for the diocese and the Maryhill Center, so as to go ahead with what he refers to as “the current priority” of providing whatever is needed and has asked us at Maryhill to suspend all retreats for the next six months, so as to accommodate the Sisters of the Holy Family until they relocate to new Convent locations in this diocese.

Some of our parishes, like the other Louisiana dioceses, have taken in priests from the Archdiocese of New Orleans who were able to escape in time. The Archbishop of New Orleans, Archbishop Hughes has set up an office in Baton Rouge and is attempting to reconnect with his clergy, wherever they can be found.

God bless you all and let's keep in prayerful contact.