Progressive Blogosphere 2.0: How would PB 2.0 have covered Hurricane Ike?

Since the news media was, at the very least, persuaded not to fly over the area. (Versions differ.) So today I linked to a central missing persons board at a local TV station, and a blogger who's coordinating before-and-after satellite pictures to help people find out what happened to specific homes.

http://susiemadrak.com/2008/09/18/11/32/...

I normally hate listening to Joe "Creative" [cough] bloviate about a part of the world they have no clue about, but events like this are perfect for citizen journalists. Or folks directly impacted that have a blog. That would be a great personal story.

A year or so ago, when WA state had severe storms and power went out for days, I didn't read much about how bad it really was. I had friends and family in the area so they told me. But I also listened to a radio station based out of Seattle (I was in N. CA at the time) and the folks who called in to rant painted a sense of urgency that may have quicked the response if more people knew how bad it was. Elderly folks and infants freezing, people going without food or plumbing. The personal stories created a much larger sense of urgency than anything I read online. PB2.0 could be useful in that area. And a widget approach that streamed or allowed you to find collected stories would be great. Even links to local papers in blog posts would be great.

Everytime I think PB2.0 is set to fail, I think of the potential for tragedies like this.

I've stopped reading local papers and really should check online local resources. If they decided to tear down I93 and start rebuilding it, I wouldn't know until I flew off the decommissioned on-ramp.

How easy/hard is it to throw up a link on a site for the Red Cross or similar orgs when people realize there's an impending disaster? (with a story/post discussing it). So, not the most original idea, but if encouraging readers to help is considered a good and cool thing to do, it's more likely to spread, and helps bring attention.

I didn't realize how bad Ike was until my work pal told me about his sister who lives coast south of Houston. Half of her house was washed away, and officials aren't letting residents in some areas for up to 6 weeks. Debris everywhere, most of their area is without power or clean water. (as I understand it, they can go back during the day for cleanup type activities but not for living purposes).

Also, if anyone has the stuff (I don't, unfortunately) to write about a disaster like Ike and tie it in to national policy concerns. For instance, rising temps in the Gulf are causing stronger storms as I understand it. Let's get behind that. And, with the collapse of AIG, will there be fallout for rebuilding -- is there an insurance impact? Stack up multiple possible interest angles.

A bit OT: I think Ike suffered a bit in the attention department because it followed so closely on the heels of Gustav. Remember Rita? Followed Katrina but everyone talks about Katrina.

I've been in situations where people were saying we have nothing and their friends and families didn't realize, even though they were told, and sent nothing and then later were like, you mean you needed pots and pans?
PB 2.0 is a good way to make people understand in fairly real time and know how to help and what's happening--which also helps in asking pols and organizations for help.
Speaking of which, does anyone know how we can help, specifically?

Citizen journalists, even embedded ones like Mayhill, can be oddly honest in an important way. Lots of professional journalists are being fired anyway...

on the ground and asked them all to submit stuff?

Can we do this now?

I'll go talk to them.

that are on the site and being matched by people with maps? Are those private helicopters?

I can't reach the people I know by phone; the recording says the phones in the area aren't working (not that I don't get that sometimes when it seems as if there is no major problem...) But I called around and hopefully will hear more soon. I knew they were okay already. One interesting thing I did learn is that Houston airport was closed until Tuesday.

Here's the MSM info: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/t...
So, some confirmation, some difference. I'll ask about it; even in MSM, there is a difference between an announcement and an--actuality?

Also, with networking, people were saying the flooding in some areas near Chicago was bad.

Do you think reports were not organized well? The NYT coverage seemed as if it were--but that was mainly TX. coverage early on; I haven't followed it since. It would be typical of the way this Admin. has handled conflict for FEMA to say the problem is not the problem, the MSM coverage is the problem, so let's do a PR fix. MBA 101.

Did FEMA do a PR fix? Gov. Perry may have given a hint of that but I didn't think it was conclusive. Also, the land/water situation down in TX is different than N.O.--I've been in both places. Once parts of Galveston washed out, it would be much more like open water--open to the sea itself. I wonder if the tree survived.

http://7thspace.com/headlines/292819/fem...
long long "response to Ike" with specifics about supplies and rescue teams

http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/liberty...

And has a theory...
"I doubt our “little” outage has even made a blip on the national radar, with the more devastating effects around Galveston and Houston in Texas as well as the financial instability of yesterday’s (into today’s) stock market." Rentz said 2 million were without power in the Ohio tri-state area by his calculations.

First off, I’ll admit to my naiveté that the national media hadn’t picked up on the whole Hurricane Ike issue. Being without power from Sunday through Tuesday night will do that, I guess. In my media blackout, I made the silly assumption that Houston and Ike had been thoroughly covered while I was sitting in the dark. What the Cincinnati area is dealing with right now is nothing compared to the devastation in Houston. What’s going wrong here now seems to be in pockets and not whole swaths.

For most people, what happened in Ohio comes under the category of incredibly inconvenient. For others, it is and will become far scarier. Some people lost roofs, some lost windows, some have trees through their walls. There are smaller towns not yet back on the grid which do not or will not have water. There are people who lost hundreds of dollars in groceries that they will not be able to replace until next pay day, who may have been unable to work and not paid for the time their company was down. I’m lucky. I spent more money than I had on extra lights and batteries and threw out a bunch of stuff from the fridge. I spent too much for crap food from the few open restaurants. But come payday, I’ll almost be back where I started, just slightly poorer. Not so for too many of the families who tossed fridges and freezers full of food, while losing days of pay.

Going back to PB 2.0, I can see it helping with making the rest of the country more aware of what’s happening in the other areas. It can help to direct aid when and where necessary. What threw me for a loop Sunday through Tuesday was lack of communication. We’ve become so dependent on the internet, tv, and cell phones as a culture. But without electric, it’s all useless.

Aren't there usually various places that collect these first-hand reports? Back in the day when I used to read Orange Satan, there were lots of links and diaries about various things like this pointing to places where people were posting their experiences.

Local political blogs, those that are still up, or ones in the next state, etc., I would think might be a source of these reports.

It's fantastic to have our own few firsthand reports here, but I wonder if maybe we should be looking instead for the local or organizational sources that might already be carrying these things, not just for links, but maybe for permission to reprint or repost here or something?

Not sure how this fits into PB 2.0 as a multi-blog structure, but speaking only of the idea of PB 2.0 as we're sort of struggling toward it here at Corrente.

Has anybody checked out the cable nets' Irepot and Ureport, blah, blah, blah, sites? Just because CNN isn't saying much about Ike beyond Texas/Louisiana doesn't mean they aren't getting submissions from other areas.

I'm slightly sensitive about this because my best friend works disasters for FEMA-- not as a first responder but involved in what's called "community relations," essentially critical liaison with mostly very local-level folks, select boards and town emergency managers, a state rep. here and there, that kind of thing.

Last I heard from my friend, she was expecting to be assigned to something a couple weeks ago, just pre-Ike. Given the subsequent silence, I assume she's down there somewhere.

FEMA's problems are legion, but I'd just ask that we bear in mind that the worker bees of the agency are very dedicated folks who are very much committed to helping and are knocking themselves out to deliver within a dysfunctionally organized and heavily, heavily Bush/GOP-patronage infiltrated agency at the management level.

They typically work seven days a week for months at a time, living out of a suitcase at whatever housing they can find on short notice (btw, you might be interested to know that FEMA workers are expected to get on the phone and *find their own housing* in the 24 hours between being notified of a disaster assignment and the time they're expected to report at the site headquarters), often a several-hour drive from the disaster area which they must make daily.

Anyway, the official FEMA site has often some very interesting daily reported stuff about the disaster area and what's going on there, so links like the above I think are good extra info to have.

What "we" need, maybe, is for some system, maybe just an invitation, for one or more people to step up and take the lead in funneling info and links, etc., about individual situations like "obscure" or maybe "obscured" disasters and other issues of immediate interest/concern. That happens spontaneously with things like the financial meltdown or the Palin/Dominionist question, but if none emerges organically for some issue of interest, maybe all it would take would be an open invite for someone to step up.

My sister's in-laws have extensive experience with them from Katrina. From what I've heard, most of the workers are wonderfully dedicated. The structure and the management are the problem.

Do you need anything?

How are the papers there? I assume the local papers--if they are able to work--covered everything? What do they say about numbers, damage, etc.?

One of the things that's happening is that MSM have cut their staff, so they may be waiting to just pick up local papers's work.

Here: AP picks up the Journal-News:"“I’ve got to see my family a lot more than I have in a long time,” Chapman told The Journal-News of Hamilton. “People have been less grouchy. We’re not worried about phone calls and bill collectors.”"

The AP story seems to imply that there is one or only a few reporters who took a 10 mile drive in to the area (or even, possibly, an early morning truck driver interview):

Here: "Just before dawn Thursday, a 10-mile drive up Interstate 71 from downtown Columbus to the city’s northern sections revealed several neighborhoods and large apartment complexes still in darkness."

Really could even be a police report.
The rest is some standard calls to power companies, or reading power company websites, same with hospitals, and doing a few interviews (some picked up from local published reports.) They may have a stringer they picked up there--but it would probably be a reporter for another paper and they maybe couldn't get in touch until the date of the story.

Any writers here who have been through this storm who want to write to, say, the NYT?

BTW, AP says on its own parent website www.ap.org that it has more than 3700 employees--which is not much to cover the world. Apparently, the Ohio part of their website relies partly on citizen journalism by news tips--check out their laundry list of topics they will accept, including storms (but not minor ones), major crimes, murders, etc.--here's the weather section:

WEATHER AND OTHER DISASTERS

YES:

* Major fires
* Outbreaks of disease
* Severe weather and its effects, including tornadoes, ice and hail storms, heavy snows, damaging rains, record heat or cold
* Commercial plane crashes
* Small plane crashes involving fatalities or unusual circumstances
* Train derailments or wrecks
* Explosions
* Chemical spills causing injuries, evacuations or significant environmental damage, or that shut down highways

NO:

* Minor storm damage
* Minor or non-fatal fires, unless they are unusual

Trish, maybe you too can work for AP and can earn $100--but only if your news tip is the best! I think you'd do a great job. (If you're interested you should--and if you'd like a reporting career, it's a nice start.) But I'm a little worried about some other possible contributors. Gives new meaning to that old Andy Warhol saw about 15 min. of fame--can our news system be partly running on free labor by people seeking their 15 min.? Isn't there a great way to game the system here? A great editor can pick up a lot but there's nothing like boots on the ground to tell if something is true or not.

http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lass... -- "The city of Galveston made its first serious misstep in handling the Hurricane Ike crisis, but it’s a big enough mistake that it almost outweighs the many good things city leaders have done.

The misstep was clamping down on the flow of information out of Galveston Island. Now, by order of Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, the only city officials who may speak to the media are Thomas herself and City Manager Steve LeBlanc.

So, reporters who had been getting solid information from the police and firemen, from the police chief and fire chief and other city department heads no longer may do so.

Meanwhile, if Monday is any indication, Mayor Thomas and LeBlanc plan press conferences that are few in number, brief in duration and at which they answer few questions. Monday’s noon press conference lasted about half an hour, and the pair answered only five questions. ..."

I've never been through a disaster like this. Here in Louisville, we had 300,000 homes w/out power. Five days later, my home still has no power, and my work only came online yesterday.

Thankfully, I have a gas stove and gas water heater, so we had hot water and fire, so we have pretty much been camping out.

While a lot of focus in my area has been on the worst situations, like the looting in some areas of town, for me the truly amazing thing is how we all came together. My entire neighborhood threw a block party to cook all the food that was going bad anyways, and shared it out amongst everyone. People shared their generator power, especially amongst the elderly.

Part of the problem here was that we sent our LG&E trucks to TX to help with the recovery there, and got hit here instead. The National Guard and out of state energy companies came in to help, but our own crews didn't get back into town until Tuesday night.

Some parts of the city came up quickly, but that's because the rich people are in town.

Public schools have been out all week. There is a entire tree uprooted around the corner from my house. Local pics are here.

i can haz hillary nao?