Baton Rouge

BATON ROUGE-- On the first Sunday since Katrina swept across the Gulf Coast in one of the worst natural disasters in American history, Charity Christian Church here was crammed with grateful worshipers. Evacuees from New Orleans sat side by side with longtime residents of this once-sleepy Southern capital 80 miles up the Mississippi, just beyond the reach of the violent storm. Those from New Orleans were grateful for their lives. "When you know God, and how good he has been to us, there's no way you can't be thankful," said Greg Davis, 39, after the service.

What is it about New Orleans? Why does it loom so large on the American psyche, take up such a huge chunk of our collective imagination? It's not that big. Its population of 484,000 puts it at 31st among American cities. Its metropolitan area of 1.3 million is dwarfed by many others whose destruction at the hands of a natural disaster would certainly be mourned but not with the intensity of feeling that the nation is feeling now. The breaches in the levees of New Orleans seemed to have landed a blow to our national solar plexus.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Every five minutes the scene repeated: An ambulance or bus pulled up to the arena at Louisiana State University and a crowd of men and women in green scrubs and rubber gloves closed around it. Then another nursing home resident snatched from the dark, or another dehydrated child or another potential heart attack victim disappeared into a makeshift emergency room, which reached its theoretical capacity of 200 the instant it opened Sunday....

It is too early for the New Orleans Saints to know their place in the massive reconstruction of their city after Hurricane Katrina. But it already may be too late to save them. Devastated by the loss of life, property and infrastructure, New Orleans faces staggering costs to rebuild itself. The Saints don't figure to fit high in that equation. Consider that the city had to borrow money the past two years to make its annual payments to the team under the lease negotiated by the previous governor of Louisiana, Mike Foster.

With the exception of war and its deadly unpredictability, hurricanes probably pose more danger to the journalists covering them than any other kind of story. As the behemoth Katrina headed toward the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama yesterday, reporters and their editors were confronted again with a fundamental problem: how to cover a lethal storm without getting killed. "The first thing we tell them is `Don't be a hero,'" said Nancy Lane, CNN's news director, as she concluded her fifth conference call of the day yesterday in preparation for the storm.

Edward F. "Fitz" Marburger Jr., a pilot and former Pasadena resident, died in his sleep Aug. 17 at his home in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was 74. Mr. Marburger was born in Salem, Ohio, and raised in Pottsville, Pa. He earned a bachelor's degree from Susquehanna University and during the 1950s served with the Navy's Seabees. He taught special-education students for several years in Middleburg, Pa., and was a flight instructor in New Cumberland, Pa., before coming to Pasadena in the 1970s and working as a home inspector.

John Darrington Gandy Jr., a retired general manager of a risk management company, died of a heart attack Tuesday at St. Joseph Medical Center. He was 76 and lived in Timonium. Born in Jackson, Miss., he earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Mississippi and also attended law school there. In 1953, he married Virginia "Ginger" Tucker in Baton Rouge, La., where he was living at the time. Mr. Gandy served from 1954 to 1956 in the Army, stationed at Fort Benning, Ga. He and his wife later moved to Cockeysville, where they lived for 30 years before moving to Timonium six years ago. He worked as the general manager of the Baltimore office of Crawford & Co., a risk management company, from 1969 until his retirement in 1989.

On May 26, 2004 JACK W.; beloved son of the late George W. and A. Rhea Davis; loving brother of Peggy D. Hiss of Towson; dear uncle of and Anne Carter of Monkton and Susie Thomas of Baton Rouge, LA. Also survived by three great nieces. Funeral Services and Interment private. Arrangements by Brian T. Chisholm Funeral Services of Dulaney Valley, P.A.

IN 1960, I WAS A 22-year-old, second-year student at Southern University School of Law in Baton Rouge, La. Southern was established in 1880 under an 1879 constitutional mandate to educate "persons of color." It was one of the first colleges for African-Americans that received federal funds for the agricultural and mechanical training of students. It is on the banks of the Mississippi River within clear view of the Louisiana Capitol and the Huey P. Long Bridge that spans the Mississippi.

Marion Lewis, whose daughter Lori Ann Lewis-Rivera was shot and killed at a Kensington gas station more than a year ago, said yesterday that he stayed away from the Lee Boyd Malvo trial for his own good. "To be frank, I didn't want to end up in jail," said Lewis, 51, from his home in Mountain Home, Idaho. "When you catch someone with blood on his hands, don't waste our time. Get a rope." For Lewis, yesterday's conviction of Malvo stoked feelings of revenge. But others who lost loved ones last year as Malvo and his partner, John Allen Muhammad, terrorized the Washington area felt a measure of relief.