By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
Aug 29, 2005
A resident of Louisiana who chose to stay at home rather than evacuate in the face of advancing Hurricane Katrina believes her country is being dealt with by God because of the major role it played in the expulsion of Jews from their homes in Gaza and northern Samaria.
Bridgett Magee told the Jerusalem Newswire as Katrina approached Sunday evening that she saw the giant hurricane ?as a direct ?coming back on us? [for] what we did to Israel: a home for a home.?
Magee, whose house in Slidell, LA, is just two miles from Lake Pontchartrain, hopes the massive storm surge waves that are anticipated will have dissipated enough before they reach her front door to keep her home from being flooded.
While she insisted that her elderly mother and sister leave for safer territory earlier Sunday, Magee feared the greater threat to their home would come from the air pressure explosions that can flatten buildings in a hurricane. She stayed in order to open doors and windows to keep the pressure from building up.
?Unless one of the tornadoes ? because there will be tornadoes in the system ? hit our house directly, I think I will be okay,? she said. There is no storm shelter in the house.
Magee said she trusted the Lord to keep her safe, and did not believe her life was meant to end in this storm.
?I have asked God to pitch His tent of protection over my home. I believe there are still things I need to do for Him with my life.?
A strong Christian supporter of Israel, Magee, who is not a young woman, has physically walked into over 100 churches in the New Orleans area trying to find congregations open to hosting speakers from the Jewish state ? with little success.
Although still recovering from painful back surgery she underwent earlier this year, she has bought her plane ticket for a trip to Israel she plans to make with her sister in November.
Magee sees the coming catastrophe as something the God of Israel will allow in judgment upon the United States for its central role in the expulsion of 10000 Jews from their homes in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria.
Those expulsions, which began two weeks ago Sunday and went on for six days, saw 10,000 Jewish men, women and children forced to leave their homes, all of which, together with gardens, schools, shops and synagogues ? 25 entire towns ? are currently being bulldozed into rubble.
As the storm barreled down on the Gulf coast of the United States Monday morning Israel time, CNN paused its almost continuous coverage for a program break, during which it screened a one minute recap of the Gaza withdrawal.
The piece ended with the dramatic words of reporter Matthew Chance:
?More than eight-and-a-half thousand people have now been evacuated from the Gaza Strip. The era of Jewish settlement here is at an end.?
Coverage of the destructive ?fist of God? called Katrina then resumed.
UPDATE: Called again on her landline at 6 AM, Magee reported there had been much rain during the night but that it was quiet at the moment and she had enjoyed ?a good night?s sleep.? The power was out but she had prepared plenty of extra coffee the night before.
?So I have made some backup plans,? she laughed.