Dear Moderator, (et al) It is certainly nice to have you back.
With respect to the Katrina disaster I would like to shamelessly plug the efforts that the WISP (Wireless ISP) community have undertaken. We had four members of WISPA that were wiped out in the disaster. Within 36 hours of the storm letting up we had volunteers on the ground, with equipment in hand, getting these networks back up. I know of several people that dropped what they were doing, loaded up their own trucks or rental trucks with food and equipment and drove out to help. If you are interested, you can read more on WISPA, the non-profit association that organized this effort here: <http://wispa.org/> There are some very candid photos posted by members of our group from the area located here: http://flickr.com/photos/tags/katrinawireless/?page=1 At this time there is a network that stretches from Gulf Port, Mississippi all the way to Pearlington, Mississippi with spurs connecting evacuee shelters all along the way. This has been done solely by contributions from our little group and with ZERO federal help. We managed to secure quite a few VoIP boxes as a donation, which has allowed people in these shelters to get in touch with friends and family. This service has now been extended across the entire network and I am reliably told we currently see several thousand telephone calls per day across this network - all at no cost to the evacuees. There is a another wireless network that connects Mac Dearman's headquarters to several other shelters. For more information please visit the site Mac (see next paragraph and the associated article) put together which provides a running commentary about what the group has done and is continuing to do. http://www.radioresponse.org/ You might want to quickly read the comments here: http://www.radioresponse.org/wordpress/?p=37#comments If you have a chance please read the article published in the Washington Post discussing more of Mac Dearman's efforts. To put this in perspective, Mac is a retired police officer who runs a WISP and is also a minister in Rayville, Louisiana. He has taken in people into his own home, found shelter for well over a thousand others while opening up his wireless network to everyone he could. One thing that Mac didn't make public is that he did all of this with a broken leg! <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/08/AR200509080 2058_pf.html> Turning to first responder communications, I am now working for a company that is tackling this problem in several different areas. I am not at liberty to discuss this in an open forum but if there is anyone who would like to visit our facility and take the full tour, I'm sure I can arrange for all of your questions to be answered. We are located roughly a two hour drive from Washington DC and I would be thrilled if you all would pay us a visit. Respectfully, Ken DiPietro Wireless without compromise. On 9/30/05, Global Knowledge Dev. Moderator wrote: > As you know, while GKD was on hiatus, two strong hurricanes devastated > Southern US, particularly Louisiana and Mississippi. GKD moderators have > been involved with a first-responder organization to help them improve > the use of ICT in their efforts. A major lesson from this tragedy -- but > not one that is new to GKD members! -- was that technology availability > is not enough. Intercommunication among the various relief agencies must > be well planned and effectively implemented on the ground. > > We will be sending a message regarding some initiatives related to > disaster first-response that would greatly benefit from GKD members' > expertise and experience. Meanwhile, we would like to get input from our > Knowledge Management experts on GKD as to how fiascos like this can be > avoided in the future, e.g., through better database structures and more > innovative ways of networking under very trying conditions. In this > case, lessons from developing countries can provide very valuable > lessons for the US. ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>
