Rita preliminiary damage reports

Rita Slows Over Louisiana After Sparing U.S. Gulf Coast Worst - as of right now it seems that Rita caused structural damage and caused loss of power and connectivity (yet again). However, the only victims so far seem to have been the elderly folks on the bus that burned before Rita arrived. New Orleans is back to square one in terms of clean up which may reduce the likelyhood of it really regaining its population back... the longer they can't come home the more likely they are to try starting lives elsewhere and be too tired of moving to move back again to an area as striken as NO is right now. sad...

Katrina-related links

Louisiana Government Katrina resource page
Allegheny County Emergency Services Hurricane Katrina relief
National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Natural Hazards Center
American Red Cross Hurricane Katrina Resources
Wikipedia - general info page Hurricane Katrina
Katrina Help: Disaster recovery wiki
Dinha Mehta's Katrina Help Blog

FCC plans $211M to rebuild communications

USATODAY.com - FCC plans $211M to rebuild communications - FCC finally put a number to a promise. It's an interesting number - some proportion of it goes to pay for reconnecting low income customers, libraries and schools. This is nice... but how long will those customers be able to maintain this connection because it looks like all this will cover is the one time connection fee and one month of service.

New Orleans rebuilt as a beacon of high technology?

New Lines of Communication - this article describes what seems to be a current common sentiment among a number of technologists and beurocrats - rebuilding NO is an opportunity to make it ultra top-technology. This could be an experiment in less infrastructure-reliant communiation mediums available to all as well as an attraction for residents and businesses - the two resources that NO officials fear they will have a hard time attracting to come back. The current disaster certainly demonstrated just how fragile are our communication infrastructures and how vital they are to well organized relief efforts (although i am having doubts whether this relief effort would have been that much more organized even if governmental agencies did not have the "lack of communication "excuse). An interesting point in the article is the idea that the new "high tech" services must extend to "poor people". Ok... what does "extend" mean? that every household should be able to pick up 802.11? that's nice but useless without the necessary technology and skills. Certainly creating a wifi-mesh like communications structure in NO would be beneficial to many - it would be relatively cheap both to build and to use, and it would be relatively robust - able to exist for weeks on little power. It makes sense to add to a city if the costs are low and the benefits are likely.

Yet I take issue with "we will earmark some money to provide poor families with access". Well that's nice, but access is not the same as having the hardware and the know-how to access. It's not going just going to take money for the poor population of NO to suddenly "get on the Internet" and "get connected" It's going to take educational centers, donations of hardware (refirbished computers for example), volunteer tech support centers. It's going to take equipping every school in the area with state of the art technology so that every child has access at least while they are at school. It's nice to talk about "earmarking some money" but how much? and where is it going to go?

The last bit in the article is the best A. Townsend quote I've heard to date (I am becoming a bit of groupie I think ;): He pointed out that all of these "hi tech" "infrastructureless" ideas are good and great, but the main reason most of the communication infrastructures failed in NO this time was not because they were broken themselves, it was because ELECTRICITY went out. As long as everything we build relies on the traditional electrical grid that can go down when an employee mixes the wires, let alone when a hurricain hits and a city floods, no matter what we build, it will still shut off. We must change the way we think about infrastructure at a very basic level - water, power, trash. Only then would we be able to build something truly innovative. At that point, we also must think about making that something innovative truly accessible to all.

this makes me want to scream... very loudly

AddieStan
After several meetings, exchanges of emails, talking... I am getting a sense that technologists around me seem to think they can save the world if only they could put all this information online and streamline it... It makes me want to crumple on the floor, roll up in a ball when the "large research proposal" PI's are interested in the "Internet response" - the person-location web-sites and the "look to see if your house is ok" websites...

I want to say - but there are people there, they are hurt, and we don't know how to help them best right now (aside from horrible horrible aweful government inpetitude) - we could, we really could provide something to ease the pain and suffering of those who lost it ALL, who don't HAVE A COMPUTER ANYMORE! and maybe never had it either! We need to understand how people cope with this thing because we only vaguely know how they could potentially do that - we have never seen anything like this happen here, in this country, let alone actually study it. Why study it? because then we can have better answers for what is needed, for how to build services and infrastructures to help these people and those in the future. The help, what the red-head psychologist writes about, the initial response is something that is necessary and the general inadequacy of this response will haunt us for years to come. Yet what will also haunt is that adjustment to this disaster for the victims, the "getting over it" is not going to happen soon - this will take years.

Those years, when Red Cross help is not available anymore, when the kindness of strangers and even friends trickles to nothing, but the monsters of water, stench, disease, lost friends, relatives, pets, will haunt the dreams, will haunt the memories. We need this research now so that we can set up long term support. We need it, so that we can understand things now and help people over the course of time, time that will heal wounds and time that it will take to rebuild half a million lives.

In Close Quarters, a Moment's Peace Is Rare

In Close Quarters, a Moment's Peace Is Rare
The human tragedy of shelters as transient spaces not designed to live in, just to wait in, have been finding their way into the media. in a certain way, it is impressive just how well these things are currently run and how many people volunteer. It is also impressive just how crowded these spaces have to be right now because there are so many people displaced. This overcrowding makes for a tough time, requiring a lot of patience from people who have been torn away from all they had, from people they knew, from everything familiar, and plunged in the middle of another version of a minor human hell.

More pet links

STUFF : WORLD NEWS - STORY : New Zealand's leading news and information website
Animal Refuge Strives to Corral Pets -- and Despair - Los Angeles Times
First Coast News | Top Stories - Local Man Rescues Pets in New Orleans
Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Katrina's Aftermath
more links - probably the most striking thing here is that neither Red Cross nor FEMA were set up to deal with pets and have even had to refuse rescue to people who wanted to take their pets along. considering the emotional bond with pets that owners develop, forcing people to leave their pets behind is making their road to recovery that much longer and harder. While officials dubbed those who wouldn't leave their pets behind as "crazy" or "dumb" other pet owners certainly understood. For some, while it's not quite like leaving your children or relatives behind, it's certainly pretty close.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Nation -- Uniting pets, families is an emotional task

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Nation -- Uniting pets, families is an emotional task - the less seen and talked about tragedy of the hurricain is the story of abandoned pets, often locked in aprtments and houses, often drowned or sick from contaminated water or starved and dehydrated. Pet owners often have an enormous emotional attachment to their pets and the trafedy of loss of all their possessions may pale in comparison with the tragedy of loss of their pet. This is especially true in instance of relocation when few familiar things are left to the victims and their pets, those emotional anchors that they have been able to rely on for years, are also gone.

Cingular, Sprint give Katrina victims bill breaks | CNET News.com

Cingular Wireless said in an FCC filing that it will give customers in New Orleans and Biloxi, Miss., a 50% credit on their monthly bills for the period spanning from late August through Sept. 30. The carrier also said it would not charge for roaming, extra minutes, long-distance or text messaging during the period. Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel announced it would give one month of free service to subscribers in the areas hit hardest by the storm, and that it also would give free long-distance, additional minutes, roaming and text messaging. Verizon Wireless said it is dealing with the situation on a case-by-case basis. Cingular, Sprint give Katrina victims bill breaks | CNET News.com (9/10)"

The trendsetter Verizon seems to lag behind on the generosity bit. They also don't seem to have set up any large donations as Sprint and Cingular did over the last two weeks. Of course, it could be they are simply humble and are not disclosing their charitable acitivities... could be, no really... hmmm naaaah.

Southern Co. unit operations restored

From the CTIA NewsWire: Carriers continue to make headway restoring service

Wireless carriers are making progress restoring service to areas hit by Hurricane Katrina. Sprint Nextel as of yesterday had restored nearly all service in Alabama, more than 80% in Mississippi and more than 60% in Louisiana. Verizon Wireless said it has restored 300 of the 400 cell sites put out of service by the storm, while T-Mobile announced service is running at nearly all of its sites. Cingular Wireless reported it has 75% service in the region, and SouthernLINC Wireless said it has brought back 100% service in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi.

Southern Co. unit operations restored
USATODAY.com - Some areas inch toward normality
Cingular restores 75 percent of service in hurricane zone - 2005-09-09
Carriers Boost Efforts to Restore Service to Gulf Coast

Wired links on Wireless activity in NO - Katrina aftermath

Satellite phones -- one of the least successful product introductions of the late 1990s -- are in fresh demand in the wake of Hurricane Katrina from storm-ravaged communities without functioning cellular and wire-line networks. Wired News: Sat Phones Surge After Katrina

Acting on an emergency request from the American Red Cross, the FCC on Friday handed over control of the toll-free number 1-800-RED-CROSS to the nonprofit group, unceremoniously plucking it from the hands of corporate digit-squatters who'd been hoping for a six-figure payday. Wired News: Red Cross Gets Squatter's Number

About 8000 wireless ISPs are standing at the ready, prepared to provide voice over IP service to relief shelters around the country, at the direction of the Federal Communications Commission. Wireless ISPs ready to heed call for help “They are trying to show alternative methods to the traditional way of doing things,” he said. “We can do this so more rapidly than the cellphone technologies. I’m not trying to indicate that those guys are less worthy. I’m just saying here’s an alternative – we can do it fast.” One Part-15 member is already provide communications to about 11 shelters north of New Orleans that were hastily assembled to give the hoards of people fleeing the city a place to be and the ability to communicate with their families, Anderson said.

--the last one in this batch is really neat - throughout the relief efforts it has become clear that newer technologies are more flexible and are capable of providing immediate support where older technologies fail. However, the question remains - which of these technologies are capable of withstanding the brunt of the disaster as well? so far experience has shown that landlines, buried deep in the ground survived the onslaught better than wireless towers, yet disruptions that did occur for landlines have been far harder to remedy.