In news showing the better side of humanity, three sophomores from Duke University posed as reporters to get inside New Orleans last weekend and rescued two families. They were turned aside a couple times until they came up with the idea of faking Associated Press badges. The impassibility of the roads turned out to be a myth; they got in with a two-wheel-drive Hyundai.

Normally, I'd have said that doing this sort of thing was a bad idea, because you risk getting in the way of a coordinated relief effort. That presupposes, however, that there is a coordinated relief effort. As it was, they got out seven people who might not have been able to wait for official relief and brought water to others who needed it, while FEMA and the National Guard stood around preventing access.

Hat tip to Pandagon for starting a Heroes of Katrina thread, where I found this. My first suggestion was Jabbar Gibson.