I've always loved a good natural disaster, as long as nobody gets hurt, because it brings people together so fast — neighbors suddenly talk to one another, people make soup and lend blankets. Growing up on the California coast, there were always floods from too much rain, mudslides closing the highways for a while. The power would go out and we'd lose all the food in our freezers, miss a little school, and after — at the most — four or five days, order would be restored and we could go back to normal. An air of celebration always came over my town: the knowledge that we were surviving something that could have been so much worse. It was even comforting to be reminded we weren't in charge — that nature, despite our attempts to ignore her, would have the last word.

But as a child, I never imagined a whole city might get wiped out. It's been a week now since Hurricane Katrina blasted the Gulf Coast, leaving floods, shattered houses, open sewer mains, and general devastation behind her. They don't know how many people have died yet, but the number is expected to be high. State and city government are still trying to convince the last remaining 10,000 people to leave New Orleans, since the drinking water is unsafe and outbreaks of cholera and TB are possible.

Despite amazing photos of helicopters air-lifting people from rooftops in baskets, I've been having a hard time visualizing what happened. I've always meant to travel through the South, but I haven't yet, so I don't know what the landscape was like before the hurricane hit. In my town it's about 80 degrees today, sunny and very dry as we move into California's fire season. I feel physically almost as removed as one could possibly be from Louisiana.

And yet, that same mechanism from my childhood has kicked in: the pull to help these people is almost overwhelming. Twice yesterday while driving I wondered how long it would take me to get to Baton Rouge if I drove straight through. And I'm not the only one. People are packing up clothes and blankets and wondering where to send them. Fire squads from across the country are already in New Orleans — and nurses, EMTs, roofers, and California Highway Patrol officers are heading there in droves. Companies tracking charitable giving report that this disaster has opened the wallets of ordinary Americans faster than New York on 9/11, last winter's tsunami in Asia, or the many hurricanes that have battered Florida over the years.

I wish Katrina hadn't hit land. The hurricane's damage is awful and will have far-reaching consequences, I know. I'm terribly sorry for the friends and relatives of those who died, for people who can't find a place to go. But I have to say I also feel a measure of joy that so many are pitching in to help in whatever ways they can.

The neighborhood is suddenly continent-sized.