Here's an excerpt from Thursday night's transcript of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," available in its entirety here. Read it thoroughly, then donate.

TONY ZUMBADA, NBC PHOTOJOURNALIST: I've got to tell you, I thought I'd seen it all. And just when you think you've seen it all, you go into another situation, and you see something horrific. I've never seen anything in my life like this. I've never seen any--I just can't put it into words, the amount of destruction that's in this city, and how these people are coping.

They are just left behind. There's nothing offered to them, no water, no ice, no C-rations. Nothing for the last four days. They were told to go to the Convention Center. They did. They've been behaving. The attitude there is unbelievable, how organized they are, how supportive they are of each other. They have not started any melees, any riots, nothing.

They just want food and support. And what I saw there, I've never seen in this country. And we need to really look at the situation in this Convention Center. It's getting very, very crazy in there and very dangerous. And somebody needs to come down with a lot of food, a lot of water. There's no hostility there, so they don't need to be bringing any guns or anything like that. They need support.

These people are very desperate. I saw two gentlemen die in front of me because of dehydration. I saw a baby near death. I went back with Harry Connick,, Jr. He spoke to them and told them he would do anything he can to help them. They seemed to appreciate that. He's the only person of authority, believe it or not--a musician--to go in there and tell them that things are going to be OK.

I don't want to sound negative against anybody or any official. But according to them and what I saw, they left, and they're there on their own. There's no police. There's no authority.

There's this one gentleman who took me around and escorted me around.

He's become like the local voice for these folks at the Convention Center. He came over to me and told me, You need to come over here. I was doing my little morning cruise around the city. I hooked up with him, put him in my car. We went over there with the crew. Two other journalists were with me. We went in there.

And you would never, never imagine what you saw in the Convention Center in New Orleans, the bathrooms, the way the bathrooms were. The stench in there, it was unbelievable. Dead people around the walls of the Convention Center, laying in the middle of the street in their dying chairs, where they died, right there in their lawn chair. They were just covered up, in their wheelchair, covered up, laying there for dead.

Babies, two babies dehydrated and died.

I just tell you, I couldn't take it. They would have talked to anybody who would have went in there and could have helped them. They would have talked to anybody. It was just like the first time that I felt that the cameras were welcome. That's how desperate they were. Usually, you know how people are in situations of this nature. They don't want to be videotaped, because they have pride. They don't want to be exposed to all the, I guess, misfortune they're having at that moment.

But these folks welcomed me. They all wanted to talk, they all wanted to take me to where the dead bodies were, where the destruction was, where the lack of food, where the toilets were just over.

It was overwhelming. I can't describe it. I just don't know how to tell you how bad it is and how they need help, yesterday. Really bad in there. They're being patient. You got to give them credit. They're sitting there being patient. They're not acting up.

I've seen worse situations where less--where they had more. I've been in the Hurricane Andrew, and people acted much worse than that. And they had much support over there. There's no support here. There's no foundation. There's no plan B, plan A. They're just left by themselves in the convention to fend for themselves.

I talked to them, I said, How are you surviving in the last four days? How are you feeding your baby? And the one father said, I have to do what I have to do. I had to go into stores. I had to steal milk, water, ice, whatever I can get to feed my babies, because they're not going to die on me.

They're stealing not because they're looting. It's a different type of looting that you're seeing here. There were early looters about shoes in the stores. These people now are about survivors. These are the families who listened to the authorities, who followed direction, who believed in the government, the local government system, to go and do what they're supposed to do, and they followed directions. They walked miles, floodwaters up to their chest, for a whole day. And they followed direction.

These are law-abiding citizens who have been left behind. They did everything they were told.

And I tell you this because I talked to all of them. I asked them last night as I was coming in, because I have to go out of the city to bring in some support system for our network.

I saw 82 buses. I counted 82 buses sitting just outside New Orleans. And I got out. And one of the guys did not want to come on camera. And I said, What's the problem? Why are they not letting you in? It is unsafe. A couple of the drivers do not want to go in.

That's how bad it was. Some of the drivers have gotten this--I guess somebody was putting out some bad news that it was totally unsafe. It's not unsafe to come in here and help these people. It's unsafe if you're looting, like the other people were. These people are not looting.

Now. The other side of the coin. The delay of humanitarian aid wasn't racial. Last night on NBC's "A Concert for Hurricane Relief," a rapper that I had never heard of, Kanye West stated that America is set up "to help the poor, the black people, the less well-off as slow as possible" and "George Bush doesn't care about black people." I actually laughed when he said that. The live broadcast immediately cut to Chris Tucker, by far one of the most interesting network "save us" decisions I've ever seen. That's beside the point.

It wasn't racial. The simple fact of the matter is that there initially wasn't any problem in New Orleans. Monday night, all newscasts were saying that New Orleans had another bit of its historic luck, that it dodged a bullet. The first I heard about levee breakages was the next morning on NBC as Brian Williams said, "There has been a major development here" as he stood on an already-wet Canal Street. Take that into consideration and you've removed 1 day from the amount of time that it took officials to respond. Not much of a defense, is it? Well, it's still wasn't racial. Get over it.