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We have thousands of patients and family members who are dealing with dual devastation, cancer and the hurricane.

I have weathered many different storms and I know who I am and my friends know who I really am.

Every member of my family was displaced by Katrina.

Never in our country's history have we witnessed a natural disaster that has impacted so many people in such a wide area. In fact, as of the writing of this column, millions of people along the Gulf Coast have been displaced from their homes in a period of only five days.

Towns and cities throughout the United States have opened their hearts and homes to thousands of families displaced from their homes as a result of this horrific storm.

I've been through natural disasters. I lived down in Miami and was down there for Hurricane Andrew which was a Category 5. There were members of my family that thought they were going to die. Everyone was in the bathtub.

There are more than 300,000 families in the Gulf region that lost their homes and are waiting for peace of mind. The hurricane exposed the sad reality of poverty in America. We saw, in all its horrific detail, the vulnerabilities of living in inadequate housing and the heartbreak of losing one's home.

I've been through quite a few hurricanes. I worked in North Carolina, where there's a housing development whose name was Landfall.

I am resilient like my mother and have the ability to face any kind of storm.

Ladies and gentlemen, I wish I had better news for you but we are facing a storm that most of us have feared. This is a threat that we've never faced before.