We all watched with horror the events that unfolded in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. What could we do? Donate money? Travel to the area with the Red Cross? Volunteer our expertise?

The medical heroes of the city tried to carry on, but the emergency generators in the basements of the hospitals were flooded, so there was no power to maintain respirators or sustain hospital operating rooms. Nurses operated respirators manually around the clock and bodies were piled in stairwells because the basement morgues were unusable. People reliant on dialysis died because no sterile water was available. Diabetics lost their insulin and died on camera from diabetic coma.

By the time people were evacuated, mostly to Texas, they suffered from fatigue, chronic illness and new health problems caused by contact with the filthy, sewage-plagued water, or lung problems from fires set around the city or severe dehydration from lack of water and food.

Many of the evacuees probably had never been out of the city of New Orleans, let alone the state of Louisiana. That assumption rests upon the fact that hundreds of thousands had no transportation to escape the city. As they sat dazed on their cots in the Houston Astrodome, Iowans jumped into action.

Gov. Tom Vilsack ordered the Iowa State Fairgrounds to be prepared for up to 5,000 evacuees. The Iowa Department of Public Health asked for volunteers. Grand View College staff, faculty and students volunteered in droves to work shifts at the fairgrounds. Churches and other citizens groups organized to help. They were lined up to assess health-care needs, both physical and emotional. Housing was being arranged.

I went to help. An army of volunteers was ready. Twenty people got off the first plane. We listened to their stories and their sorrows. To our surprise, they were not relocated from Houston. They came straight from New Orleans and were unaware where they were going until the plane was in the air.

We prepared for the next plane, which was rumored to have 75 children and just as many pets on board. Then we received word that the second plane would not arrive, that the citizens of New Orleans did not want to move to the North. What happened?

A friend of mine is a Sudanese refugee. He helps refugees new to Iowa adapt to a culture so foreign that it seems surreal. For example, there is no word for snow in the Nuer language. Like the Sudanese, generations of people from New Orleans have never seen snow, have never been cold — and have no interest in being separated from members of their extended family.

Currently there are approximately 400-500 evacuees in Central Iowa, most of whom have family members here who can help them adjust to a completely different way of life. There may be more, but the total won’t approach the predicted 5,000.

As the nation struggles to recover from the worst natural disaster in history, we can watch, we can continue to be on standby and we can continue to open our doors and hearts in Iowa. We should not be discouraged that the evacuees did not come to our state. We were ready and will continue to envelop them should they change their minds.

We must go to them and help rebuild the city so that they can return to their roots. They are hardy, just as we are hardy. Iowans know how to rebuild, as we did after the 1993 floods. Although the scale of our disaster was nothing compared with theirs, we rebuilt. To the citizens of New Orleans, Iowans send a message of hope.

Jean Logan is a registered nurse, a professor at Grand View College and a member of the Broadlawns Medical Center board of trustees.