One disaster to another

Justine Redman
AC360° Producer

[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/US/weather/05/03/tennessee.flooding.deaths/c1main.tennessee.flooding.wmc.jpg caption="Redman: as the plane ducks down below the cloud cover for landing, the flooding spreads out as far as you can see." width=300 height=169]

I am sitting on a plane on my way to the Gulf coast to cover the oil spill, thinking about what we're going to see when we get there, when suddenly I'm confronted with a different disaster.

I've got to change planes in Memphis, Tennessee, and as the plane ducks down below the cloud cover for landing, the flooding spreads out as far as you can see. I wasn't really expecting it, because I knew the worst was in a different part of the state, closer to Nashville. But even here, the landscape is a patchwork of flooded fields, flashing silver as they catch the sun. It looks really bad; people's livelihoods drowned. It's the worst flooding here for decades, so many people's homes and lives are ruined... and many have already died.

As a journalist, I've never passed by a disaster before, and it's an uncomfortable feeling. I'm carrying on to another place where the worst destruction hasn't even happened yet. It's not that the suffering here is any less important than the story I'm going to cover, it's just that today it is somebody else's assignment.