Two Americas

To see some of America's poorest residents, virtually all of them African American, scrap and fight for food, for water and for survival, only confirmed for many people that race and class divisions affect every portion of our nation's culture -- right down to providing emergency relief for people whose lives hang in the balance.

And while officials in Washington, D.C., from the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the White House, say everything that can be done is being done, it's next to impossible to gauge the accuracy of those statements from the images flashing on TV screens, Web sites and in news publications from Maine to California.