I had to turn the television off," Sandi Benson said Friday. "I can't watch, but I'll do what I can do."

Benson was one of hundreds of individuals and businesses in the Helena area who responded Friday when Gov. Schweitzer put out a call for bottled water to be sent to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

By the time the water was all in one place, there was far too much to fit in the Chinook helicopter that was there to haul it away.

"This is a small gesture," said Barb Petty, another participant, adding, "Any little bit we can do is a big deal."

She was right both times.

The challenges that the aftermath of Katrina will bring to the country are enormous. They'll stretch far beyond the search-and-rescue operations going on now in the stricken parts of the Gulf Coast.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced.

Engineers say that it could take weeks or even months before much of New Orleans isn't under water. Huge areas of the city are likely to be simply uninhabitable for a long time to come.

Other communities are simply gone.

The total damage to the area will be in the tens of billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, there are serious questions about the speed and efficacy of the response to the disaster. The social ramifications of that brewing controversy with its overtones of race and class are hard to predict.

And Katrina's economic impact will ripple through the entire country, affecting everything from the cost of food and energy to tax policies.

There is bound to be plenty of ugliness ahead.

That's why it was a big deal Friday to have pictures of Helenans so involved in their small gesture.

We know that as generous and good-hearted as we are in times of trouble, there's a whole country out there just like us.

People waiting to do any little bit they can.

That is a very big deal.