September 02, 2005 05:58 AM
Folks:
The response yesterday was tremendous, far exceeding even my most optimistic hopes. With this momentum established, there seems no reason to stop now. So, in a spur-of-the-moment decision made with Hugh Hewitt when I dropped by his studio yesterday (audio here), we've decided to turn Blog Relief Day into Blog Relief Weekend. I will be keeping all the relief pages front-and-center here at TTLB at least through the Labor Day holiday next Monday.
In fact, I don't want to just keep going as-is: I want to go even further. So here's a few announcements and requests:
International Blogbursts: To date, bloggers from 20 countries have signed up for the effort. This is a great start, but I think we can do even better. I'd like to ask bloggers across the world to set up country-specific blogbursts to aid the relief effort. This is especially important because unlike in the U.S., I am sure that internationally, the plight of Katrina's victims isn't quite as front-and-center in the mainstream media, and so bloggers can truly help in raising awareness of the situation and the massive need for aid.
So, I'd ask for some non-U.S. bloggers to step up to the plate and volunteer to organize a blogburst in their country. If you'd like to volunteer, please e-mail me and put "International Blogburst" as the subject line of your message, and I'll promote your efforts here at TTLB and beyond.
Corporate Sponsors: I'd like to ask companies everywhere to consider joining in the Blog for Relief effort by pledging to match donations made by bloggers during the drive. Whether you are a small business owner running your own Mom & Pop store, or a CEO/SVP at a multi-billion-dollar corporate giant, there's a place for your organization in this effort, however small or large a pledge you can make. Corporate sponsors will, of course, receive prominent placement here at TTLB --- and from the many bloggers that you will be aiding in the effort. If your company is interested, please e-mail me and put "Corporate Sponsor" as the subject line of your message. And if you think your company might be interested but aren't at a level to make such a decision yourself: please, pass it up the chain and try to get your corporate leadership on board!
Next Steps for Meeting Relief Needs: Hugh Hewitt has made an outstanding proposal in his latest Weekly Standard column, and I've signed on board to help launch the effort. The idea is simple: to create a web portal where organizations in the area affected by Katrina can broadcast to the world their needs, and the world -- and in particular, similar organizations elsewhere --- can step up to meet those needs.
I'm already at work designing the basic framework of such a system, but the one thing that is certain is that we will need help. For sure, we will need the following:
- Web hosting: We expect that initially the directory will be hosted here at TTLB, but will ultimately migrate to be a separate stand-alone effort. If there is a hosting company that would be willing to donate a dedicated server or two for the effort, that would make life much simpler. Update: The fine folks at Hosting Matters, who currently host TTLB, have agreed to donate a server to the effort!
- Web Developers: I'll be hacking the initial code myself in my usual style, but I may need help. If you know LAMP development and would be willing to assist, please speak up.
- Web researchers & site editors: To launch this effort, we will be looking for people to help out in scouring the web for charities, identifying their needs, and also simply monitoring the portal and ensuring things are running smoothly. If you are interested and have the time to commit, let me know.
If you can help in any of the above ways, please e-mail me and put "Meeting Relief Needs" as the subject line of your message.
That's it for now, folks. The thing to remember is that this is just the very beginning of the ordeal for the hundreds of thousands of people whose lives have been derailed by the storm. And therefore, it must also be only the very beginning of our efforts to assist them...
August 31, 2005 09:59 PM
The day is here, and I would ask bloggers everyone to join in today and encourage your readers to give, give, and give some more to the Katrina relief charity of your choice.
If you are a blogger and want to participate, here's what you should do:
1) Select a charity you'd like to support from this list here, or add your own.
2) Register your blog here
3) Post at least once on your blog about the charity of your choice. Make sure to include a link to Instapundit's roundup page and the TTLB Katrina Relief page, and e-mail Instapundit the URL of your post.
4) Encourage your readers to donate to your recommended charity, and send them to the contribution logging page at TTLB to record their donations.
And yes, I am trying to encourage some friendly competition here. Tomorrow morning I will be publishing "leader boards" which show which charities are receiving the most donations, and which bloggers have been most successful in encouraging their readers to donate. So get your readership fired up!
Everything above is just my suggestion: the important thing is just to devote your energies today to doing something that will help those who have been affected by the storm. Thanks to everyone for the overwhelming interest and support: now let's see if we can do some good...
August 30, 2005 08:53 PM
As promised, I've created a page for bloggers to sign up to participate in the Katrina blog relief day proposed by Hugh and seconded by Glenn. TTLB's Katrina Relief page can now be found here.
If you are planning on supporting the effort this Thursday, here's what I would ask you to do:
- Select a charity you'd like to recommend your readers donate to, and check if it is already listed in the TTLB database here.
- If your charity isn't yet listed, add it by using the form here
- Register your blog using the form here
It has been a real rush job for me to hack together the code to support this stuff, so please bear with me if things aren't quite as perfect and elegant as we all might wish.
On that note: there are a load of charities which have already indicated they will be supporting the Katrina relief effort. If someone (or someones) would start combing the blogosphere for good charities and adding them to the database, that would be wonderful. I'm focusing my time/energy on ensuring the infrastructure works, so if others could take on the data-entry work, that would be most helpful.
And for the record: I'm not in charge of this project. Nobody is. I'm stepping in to provide a way for bloggers to indicate their support for the effort because, well, I can. This is what I can do, and I encourage everyone to think about what they can do to support the goal we all share: to raise as much money and support for relief efforts to aid those effected by Katrina as we possibly can.
I'm a little fried, so I have not yet created any automated way to share the weblog and charity data with other sites that may want to create aggregators or otherwise use the information I'm collecting. I'll try to get that done in the morning, but for now, if you want to leverage this info, please e-mail me and we'll figure it out.
Thanks, all. Now let's do some good...
August 30, 2005 12:41 PM
Hugh Hewitt suggests "perhaps the bloggers could agree to set a day for a unified blog beg" and Glenn suggests this Thursday, September 1.
I'm in. Here's what I'll do here at TTLB:
1) Set up a registration page where bloggers planning to join in can say so, including providing information (if they like) about where they are blogging from and the charity they suggest donations to.
2) Make the database as publicly accessible and available as I can, so that anybody else who wants to create an aggregation page or otherwise use the list can do so.
3) On the day of the event, I'll create a dedicated community page for it, and run that as TTLB's front page.
Other suggestions are welcome, and I'll try to think of how else I can help during the day today. I should have the registration page up and running tonight...
Update: The registration page is now available...
August 29, 2005 10:56 AM
Fox News, reporting on the problems resulting from last-minute use of the Lousiana SuperDome as an emergency shelter --- in September 2004:
"While this building certainly can accommodate a large crowd for a four-hour event, we're not equipped to handle 30,000 or 40,000 people for three or four days," said Superdome general manager Doug Thornton.
In 1998, people showed up with insufficient or no food, and complained when the Dome served them hot dogs and orange juice. When kept from leaving after the storm because of a curfew, shouting matches erupted with security and police. Some occupants hauled off televisions and furniture.
"I'd say 99 percent of the people were fine," Thornton said. "But we didn't have enough security people to handle the crowd and prevent problems."
The Superdome can withstand most catastrophes; the roof is built to stand up to 200 mph wind and even deep flood water wouldn't reach the second level 35 feet from the ground.
There are potential problems nonetheless. Although the building has its own generators, they would not provide lights or air conditioning for the entire area if electricity went out. Nor would pumps providing water to second-level bathrooms function.
Just as during Georges, the Dome has only a small work crew for Ivan, which means providing security and services gets even harder, Thornton said.
"The office of Emergency Preparedness and the city decided that the Dome would not be operated as a shelter," he said. "That means we are not equipped as one."
The city previously provided shelters for those unable to leave when storms threaten. Now, the Red Cross will not set up shelters for a storm larger than a Category 2, saying New Orleans -- much of which is below sea level -- is not safe in bigger storms. Because of that, the city concentrates on evacuation first.
From a planning standpoint, Nagin said he did not regret keeping the Superdome from use until the last minute. "As far as an empathy standpoint," he conceded, "we could have moved a little quicker."
I'd certainly like to know whether any of the lessons learned from last year (and the years before) were applied and if the SuperDome is better prepared this time around. In particular: how much fuel does the emergency generator have, and how long can it run?
And yes, that's the same mayor Nagin who waited until the very last minute to declare an evacuation this time around.
August 28, 2005 07:37 PM
Louisiana State Law, defining negligent homicide:
§32. Negligent homicide
A. Negligent homicide is the killing of a human being by criminal negligence.
B. The violation of a statute or ordinance shall be considered only as presumptive evidence of such negligence.
C. Whoever commits the crime of negligent homicide shall be imprisoned with or without hard labor for not more than five years, fined not more than five thousand dollars, or both. However, if the victim was killed as a result of receiving a battery and was under the age of ten years, the offender shall be imprisoned at hard labor, without benefit of probation or suspension of sentence, for not less than two nor more than five years.
Around this time tomorrow, I'd ask that any New Orleans' district attorneys who aren't either dead, under water, or both to start considering how this statue might apply to New Orleans Mayor C Ray Nagin, who waited until Sunday morning to issue a mandatory evacuation order, despite storm predictions as early as Saturday showing that Katrina would be a killer storm for New Orleans.
No, I'm not kidding.
And by all means, if you are one of those unfortunates currently trapped in New Orleans, please, please: prove my fears wrong, and be safe.
see also: the Katrina topic page
August 28, 2005 08:40 AM
I've added two new topic pages this morning: one for the Able Danger story, and one for Hurricane Katrina.
Regarding Katrina: please, if you are in the area expected to be hit, do not think that it would be cool to "liveblog a hurricane." It would be, in fact, very stupid. Get out of the danger area, help your friends and family do the same, and then and only then, blog away about your experiences...