Re: [DDN] Katrina Refugees SWARMcast?

2005-09-01 Thread Andy Carvin



Jim Brazell wrote:


Hi,

My name is Jim Brazell.

We have refugees from New Orleans and Thibodeaux here in San Antonio.
There are shelters forming where refugees have web access. There cell
phones are not working. Communication among the displaced is not tied to
a common core of services.  


Can we form a blog for refugees?

 

ac: Quite easily, Jim. DDN (www.digitaldivide.net) has free blogs for  
anyone who becomes a member. Or, you could use blogger.com like I did 
for my hurricane blog. Both are very easy to set up; blogger would also 
let you have a group blog, with multiple people posting to the site. If 
you wanted to, you could even just use my blog - 
http://katrina05.blogspot.com - since it was intended to be used in 
exactly this way.




Does anyone know of a real-time Satellite Company where people can see
their property over the web?

 

ac: No, not offhand. There are satellite companies that charge people 
for this service, but I don't know of any that do it for free online.



What is the url for confirmed deaths?

 

ac: Doesn't exist as of yet. There's no one official Katrina site. The 
red cross may start posting it, or fema.gov. But the Wikipedia page for 
Katrina is quite extraordinary people. They've done an excellent job 
keeping it current. They even have a table that shows the death toll, 
county by county (or parish by parish, as is the case for Louisiana).



Is there a missing or lost web site and search (People, Places and
Things).
 

ac: Several of them, but none of them official as of this morning. On my 
blog I'm aggregating missing persons announcements and photos from 
Craigslist and NowPublic.com, two of the main sources. Hopefully the red 
cross will get its missing persons database up and running soon. They 
were slow during the tsunami, and when it was launched, it crashed 
because of traffic.




Is there a podcast?

 

ac: Again, no official podcast. Most of the local newspapers in the 
region are posting multimedia. A few have been posted to my blog, but 
not many as of yet. Mine's set up so anyone with access to a phone can 
call in, leave a voicemail, and have it posted as a podcast. DDNer Chris 
Warner Carey posted one yesterday about his plans to leave California 
this weekend to volunteer in the relief efforts, for example. It would 
be great if more people could post messages like this




Is there a RSS bundle of streams?

I'm hoping to do this, but haven't had much time as of yet. I did 
something similar on www.tsunami-info.org, but so far I've been focused 
more on basic blogging. I'll see if I can pull something together by 
tonight, but for now I need to concentrate on my day job - yes, I do 
have a job :-)


--
---
Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media  Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://www.tsunami-info.org
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
---

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Re: [DDN] Katrina Refugees SWARMcast?

2005-09-01 Thread Taran Rampersad
Andy Carvin wrote:



 Jim Brazell wrote:

 Hi,

 My name is Jim Brazell.

 We have refugees from New Orleans and Thibodeaux here in San Antonio.
 There are shelters forming where refugees have web access. There cell
 phones are not working. Communication among the displaced is not tied to
 a common core of services.
 Can we form a blog for refugees?



 ac: Quite easily, Jim. DDN (www.digitaldivide.net) has free blogs for
 anyone who becomes a member. Or, you could use blogger.com like I did
 for my hurricane blog. Both are very easy to set up; blogger would
 also let you have a group blog, with multiple people posting to the
 site. If you wanted to, you could even just use my blog -
 http://katrina05.blogspot.com - since it was intended to be used in
 exactly this way.

Interesting - are there telecentres at the stadiums? That would be
really good. VoIP calls, email... letting people know that they are OK.
The blogging would be good too.


-- 
Taran Rampersad
Presently in: Georgetown, Guyana
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

http://www.knowprose.com
http://www.easylum.net
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran

Criticize by creating. — Michelangelo

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RE: [DDN] Katrina Refugees SWARMcast?

2005-09-01 Thread Jim Brazell
Andy said:

Interesting - are there telecentres at the stadiums? That would be
really good. VoIP calls, email... letting people know that they are OK.
The blogging would be good too.

There 2 million people or so displaced to states, regions and cities
around the Gulf Coast. A core problem is people are so far apart, their
cells phones do not work and there is no single registry of found
people.. In other words, missing is only 1/2. The displaced people can
not connect with each other because they have no working home phone or
cell phone (in many cases). The web is the key. It can allow all of
those who are displaced to find each other. 

We have 3 people from Kenner LA staying with us in San Antonio. Kenner
and Metairie are the suburbs of New Orleans and they are close to the
axis of the river and the lake. In fact they usually flood before
downtown. We need satellite pictures we can zoom down to the roofs and
see if homes and cars are under water and to what extent. My dad is from
Biloxi and he is now in Florida. He is in the same situation. He can
call us but he can not reach his employees, friends and family from
Biloxi-New Orleans. 

The Satellite company, Spaceimaging.com has some great free pictures of
New Orleans pre flood and Mobile Alabama post flood. They are imaging
New Orleans yesterday and today and will have new images tomorrow. 

http://www.spaceimaging.com/gallery/default.htm

If anyone finds other imaging, please let us know and let's get the word
out. The gentleman who created the call for bloggers to direct to his
RSS bundle is a great idea. It must be pushed onward past today. Let's
create a large filter and aggregation of services.

1) Post Hurricane Satellite Imagery (zoomable to roof tops)
2) Found People 
3) People to Locate
4) Confirmed Deaths
5) Info on opening of places to receive people back home
6) Key phone numbers for services
7) Personal accounts of the Hurricane
8) Aid Applications and Data

--Jim Brazell


-- 
Taran Rampersad
Presently in: Georgetown, Guyana
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

http://www.knowprose.com
http://www.easylum.net http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/Taran

Criticize by creating. - Michelangelo

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