Sunday, September 11, 2005

Standing Down! Until Further Notice.........

WSU experts explore rebuilding of New Orleans: A panel of Wayne State University experts will examine the prospect of rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina on Friday from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Student Center Building in Detroit. Eight panelists representing various disciplines will participate in a campus dialogue titled "Building New Orleans: The Issues, the Challenges and the Opportunities," sponsored by Wayne State's department of geography and urban planning. Topics to be covered include what the disaster reveals about federal, state and local disaster management, what the flooding and coastal destruction tell us about the intersection of the natural and human-built environment, what the rescue effort says about race, class and poverty in America, and what the media's performance reveals. They'll also cover whether New Orleans can or should be rebuilt as it was and in the same location, and who should pay for that. Panelists are to include Robin Boyle, professor of urban planning and chair of the department of geography and urban planning; Dale Brandenburg, research professor, instructional technology, College of Education; George Galster, Clarence B. Hilberry Professor of Urban Affairs; Carol Miller, professor of civil engineering; Kristine Miranne, director, Skillman Center for Children; Rayman Mohamed, assistant professor of urban planning; Professor Matthew Seeger, department of communication chair; Professor Larry Lemke, department of geology; and Carmen Echols, Wayne State University School of Medicine student. For further information, contact Boyle at: (313) 577-5071. Lunch will be provided for the first 100 attendees.

Friday, September 09, 2005

Wireless Communications Deployment Godsend

Wireless Networks Give Voice To Evacuees

By Arshad Mohammed

Hurricane Katrina survivor Caprice Butler had been at a church shelter in rural northeastern Louisiana for nearly a week when she finally heard her husband's voice on an Internet phone running on an improvised wireless network.

"I was just overjoyed," she said yesterday, tearing up as she spoke outside the church in the farming town of Mangham, about 200 miles from her flooded New Orleans home. "Words can't explain how I felt."

If the Butlers manage to reunite this weekend, as they hope, it will be because of a band of volunteer techies who are stitching together wireless networks at shelters across northeastern Louisiana using radio transmitters mounted on such items as a grain silo and a water tower.

With few reliable communications systems in place, people and companies from around the country are converging on the region to create improvised networks that give survivors and emergency personnel ways to talk and coordinate efforts.

While local telephone and wireless networks are slowly coming back, they remain spotty or nonexistent in some places, and fire, police and other rescue personnel have complained about the lack of a unified emergency communications system. To meet the needs of evacuees in Jackson, Miss., Dulles-based America Online has parked an 18-wheel truck at the Mississippi State Fairgrounds, a major shelter, with a satellite dish on top and 20 computers with Internet access inside. At the Houston Astrodome, volunteers have obtained a Federal Communications Commission license to set up a low-power radio station and are now struggling to get permission from local officials to broadcast to evacuees inside the stadium.

F4W, a Lake Mary, Fla., company, is under government contract to provide Internet phones and online access to Coast Guard officers cleaning up oil spills, using a portable satellite dish and handsets often deployed in forest fires.

The network at Mangham Baptist Church was the brainchild of Mac Dearman, a wireless Internet service provider who was driving past the church last week when he saw a group of parked cars, realized they were people who had fled the hurricane and set about providing relief, including food, clothing and online access.

Dearman hooked up a radio transmitter near the church and linked that to a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephone and a computer, and suddenly the dozens of people taking refuge at the church had the ability to reach out to the outside world.

Mostly, they are searching for loved ones and filling out Federal Emergency Management Agency forms to get disaster aid.

"They just call from shelter to shelter to shelter looking for their kids or for their daddies or their brothers because they got separated, and they are just finding each other in the last few days," Dearman said, adding that people were often overwhelmed when they connected.

"They cried big tears, hugged my neck, shook my hand and patted me on the back. You'd have thought I was really giving them something that cost a lot of money," he added.

Dearman is working entirely with donated labor and equipment.

People from as far afield as Nebraska, Missouri and Indiana are camped out in his house, coordinating equipment deliveries, searching for shelters that need service, and then sending out volunteers to climb towers to hook up radio antennas and set up the networks.

"We are basically completely bypassing the phone system," said Matt Larsen of Scottsbluff, Neb., who said he was perched on a bar stool with his laptop at Dearman's kitchen counter.

Dearman estimated that he had run wireless links to about a dozen shelters near his home base of Rayville, La., but only about half were up and running because he had run out of equipment.

He was expecting fresh donations of secondhand computers, VoIP phones and wireless equipment. Once he has those in hand, he said, he hopes to extend to shelters closer to New Orleans and to Mississippi's Gulf Coast.

"It's been a godsend," said the Rev. Rick Aultman, pastor of Mangham Baptist Church, where about four dozen people are staying.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

Asset Organization Identified / Strategic Planning "Strawman" Overview

Thanks to Jim Bates

Architecture for Humanity
http://www.architectureforhumanity.org

Strategic Planning "Strawman" Overview

1. Develop alliance with necessary persons to open the doors and cut the red tape.

2. Move the relief supplies out of Michigan.

3. Develop a plan for recycling the waste stream in any way possible and identify which wastes to start with.

4. In relation to #3. Determine what Our energy, finacial and other organizational needs may be. Plan to utilize biomass and other renewable energies ASAP.

5. Identify core team necesary to accomplish goals at each stage and level.

6. Develop a website with varying levels of access all the way from the general public to close buisness associates and whatever falls in between. This can be interactive on the more secure levels, which would also be able to be utilized in telephone conferencing, etc.
*Voyager Rescue 2005 blog-site developed at http://www.VoyagerRescue2005@blogspot.com

Ground Zero Biloxi / Information Links

Folks;

Image of Ground Zero Biloxi 8-31-2005
http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/biloxi_coast_08_31_05_dg.jpg

Command Post Location?

Information Links / Imagery, Maps, etc. (Google Hurricane Katrina)

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency
http://www.mema.ms.gov/

Google Earth
http://earth.google.com/katrina.html

Federal Emergency Management Agency
http://www.fema.com/

FEMA 2005
http://www.fema.gov/press/2005/resources_katrina.shtm

Weather
http://www.weather.com/newscenter/tropical/?from=wxcenter_news

National Hurricane Center / Satellite and Infrared Imaging
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

CNN Hurricane Katrina / Harrison County / Biloxi
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/29/hurricane.katrina/

NOAA Storm Tracker
http://www.stormtracker.noaa.gov/stormtracker-katrina.htm

NOAA / Imagery
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/

Blog Relief Day / Septemeber 1, 2005
http://www.truthlaidbear.com/topicpage.php?topic=Katrina

Digital Globe / Imagery
http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/katrina/

Voyager Rescue targets Mississippi / Personnel Contact Information

David:

Just in case you can use a repository for our endeavors.

Personnel Contact Information (Please Edit for Accuracy and Updates)

David Allen
Business: 313-255-7390
Mobile: 313-478-2311
E-mail: VoyagerXTeam@cs.com

Jim Bates
Mobile: 248-245-7114
E-mail: Renewables@charter.net

Jim Ross
Business: 248-335-4791
E-mail: Jross@earthlink.net

Michigan Farmers Union
Gary Willey, President
E-mail: gwilley@airadvantage.net
Marilyn Momber
E-mail: cowsmonaut@aol.com
National Farmers Union http://www.nfu.com

Taylor Recycling Facility L.L.C. http:
Jim Taylor
E-mail:
info@taylor-recycling.com

Architecture for Humanity http://www.architectureforhumanity.org
Kate Stohr
E-mail:
kstohr@architectureforhumanity.org

Pirana http://www.piranaabg.com/

Agriboard http://www.agriboard.com/

Southern Board REnewable Energy Company http://www.seenergyco.com
Jim Bates
E-mail:
renewables@charter.net

Bountiful Gardens http://www.bountifulgardens.org/