"If you have tears..."

"...prepare to shed them now ."

(William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, scene 2)

On August 1, 1936, radio reporter Herbert Morrison was narrating the arrival of a flight from Europe.

Suddenly, he was reporting through his tears, as the airship burst into flame before his eyes.

On Monday of this week, WKRG-TV weekend anchor Jennifer Mayerle was reporting from the wreckage of Biloxi, Mississipi, when she asked a passer-by how he was doing.

Seconds later, she too was reporting through her tears, for heartbreak, despair, horror, and woe flowed from this man.

MAN: I'm not doing good.

REPORTER: What happened?

MAN: The house just split in half.

REPORTER: Your house split in half?

MAN: We got up in the roof, all the way to the roof, and water came and the house just opened up, divided…

REPORTER: Who was at your house with you?

MAN: My wife.

REPORTER: Where is she now?

MAN: Can't find her body. She's gone.

REPORTER: You can't find your wife?

MAN: No, she... I hold her hand as tightly as I could and she told me, you can't hold me. She said take care of the kids, and the grandkids...

The man identified himself as Hardy Jackson and his wife as Tonette.

The heartwrenching video is available in full on the WKRG website (RealPlayer format only)
rtsp://mgs.mgbg.com/wkrg/video/083105_jennifer_mayerle_man_on_street.rm
and an excerpt through a link from this CNN story
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/31/katrina.people/

UPDATE - Follow-up news reports on Hardy Jackson (whose name on the video was widely misunderstood as Harvey Jackson) appeared in mid-September.