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September 9, 2005
People search nightmare
It drives me crazy that people are still creating and advertising their own homemade Katrina missing-persons databases. More databases make our job harder, not easier.
The fact that CNN is still saying "look for your loved ones on CNN.com" and MSNBC is still saying "look for your loved ones on MSNBC.com" is maddening. CNN and MSNBC don't give a fuck about the realities of actually connecting families, they are just interested in looking like they are helping, and driving traffic to their sites. If they want to actually HELP us, direct people to redcross.org.
The only good new development in databases are the aggregator ones that are collecting info from all the disparate locations and letting you search all of it at one time. Lycos has one, and now Yahoo has one that rocks:
http://boards.news.yahoo.com/boards/
The people search is obsessing me. I bring homework home and work on it late into the night. I think I found another one last night, waiting on a confirmation. But it's the ones that you don't find that are haunting. I know the day is coming when they will start putting the deceased database on-line and we will have to start searching there too, and I dread it.
Let me put in a plug here for a Pastor Hargrove of Austin TX. This man is one of those bad-ass drill sergeant kind of preachers. Ray Nagin with a Bible. He was at the shelter late into the night, grabbing whatever remaining volunteers he could find and saying "here, you need to help this person", and sticking around and taking notes himself on everything you did. Christianity needs more dudes like this. If I see much more of him I might actually get inspired to go back to church.
I talked to a girl who survived four days at the N.O. Convention Center. She put down $200 a month as her income on her FEMA application. She knew her way around the internet though, didn't need any help at all. Her mom, her sister, her niece are all missing, last known whereabouts at the Superdome.
I talked to a guy who was at the N.O. Convention Center for three days but refused to eat the looted food because the Lord did not provide that food to him and it was not his to take. He was on the very first bus out. He is quite certain that the Lord put him on the first bus as a reward for keeping the commandments. I could listen to that guy talk all day.
Posted by ray at September 9, 2005 12:40 PM | Permalink
Categories: [austin | katrina | new orleans ]
Comments
I completely acquiesce with your sentiment. Wish there were more grassroot organisations equipped for re-uniting families and finding them host matches. This sparks off several concerns like time-period for hosting families, education, employment and such suches.
Austin has been doing a satisfactory job so far. Red Cross is inundated. Volunteers/Organisations are spearheading the formidable task of co-ordinating pure basic need for evacuees than getting the coverage. Katrinahelpaustin.com is one of them. Evacuees are waiting for help.
Posted by: rashmi khosa at September 9, 2005 1:20 PM
At least one happy story of a family reuniting: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9230423/
when you think of what could have happened, it's a miracle.
Posted by: Gwensarah at September 9, 2005 2:02 PM
I've been working the 211 texas hotline, and I agree with you completely that CNN, MSNBC, and Earthlink seem more interested in generating content for their site than actually helping. And they provide so little instruction for submitting information that much of it is useless. Memo to the internet: decentralization is not always the answer. Memo to the geeks: building a website isn't always the answer. I can't stop thinking about the woman I talked to who was looking for James Green. I didn't want to tell her that the name showed up on the MSNBC list, because there were so many James Greens listed and no way to tell them apart.
Posted by: Skye at September 9, 2005 2:26 PM
Ray, thank you for all that you're doing. I mean, I know you're not doing it for thanks, but I'm so encouraged when I read your site. And I totally agree about the redcross.org. Red Cross was slow to act, though, which is why there were so many sites up at the beginning. Now, it's just confusing.
And the families haunt me, too. It killed me talking to a family last night who cannot find someone. The woman knew her best friend had stayed behind with her 98 year-old grandmother and her own kids because she couldn't get them all into her small car. That street was on CNN at one point, and the street sign was completely underwater. They're desperately looking for any news on this person and her name is so common, they're having no luck. The woman telling me the story is wracked with grief that she didn't do back to try to help, but she didn't get her family out until the day before the storm (no transportation, borrowed a car). She bursts into tears, and I am now having nightmares that I'll never find this woman for her.
The worst part of 9/11, burned into my memory, is all of the loved ones going to that wall, holding up their photos of a missing loved one. Still, to this day, makes me cry. This is like that, only spread out and so big.
Anyway, love your blog and thanks.
Posted by: toni at September 10, 2005 1:58 AM
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