Need Help - Hurricane Katrina Scripting-Please

[spignataro]

http://disastersearch.org/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=29

I think this page needs some rewording and would like some other thoughts on it.


Area should be more or less - Location. Or there should be a short description of what Area means. It is a bit vague.

Also not sure if this is possible to make things go quicker why not just do a drop down box of all the available areas? Just a thought....but i noticed it is so far not much of a used area. Just thinking of things that could be improved.

Cheers

[Elpie]

Thought you might laugh at this. It reminds me of that children's game called "whispers" where one person whispers something to another, and it goes on down the line of kids until the last one reports what he/she heard.

longwhitecloud alerted us to this righteous effort initiated by a New Zealander who, with hundreds of volunteers globally, has been working 18-20 hours days since the hurricane struck to help the survivors of Katrina put their lives back together. Not only is it very functional (I bet you can't think of an evacuee's need that they're not trying to take care of), it's also stunningly gorgeous web design. Kudos, and thanks all the way across the Pacific to Lynne Pope in Palmerston North, from grateful America :-) You've done beautiful work and put our own government to shame.

"initiated" "hundreds of volunteers"???? 

But the blog has two mentions of us, and a link. Check it out: http://discardedlies.com/

[Peter Koch]

Thought you might laugh at this. It reminds me of that children's game called "whispers" where one person whispers something to another, and it goes on down the line of kids until the last one reports what he/she heard.

longwhitecloud alerted us to this righteous effort initiated by a New Zealander who, with hundreds of volunteers globally, has been working 18-20 hours days since the hurricane struck to help the survivors of Katrina put their lives back together. Not only is it very functional (I bet you can't think of an evacuee's need that they're not trying to take care of), it's also stunningly gorgeous web design. Kudos, and thanks all the way across the Pacific to Lynne Pope in Palmerston North, from grateful America :-) You've done beautiful work and put our own government to shame.

"initiated" "hundreds of volunteers"???? 

But the blog has two mentions of us, and a link. Check it out: http://discardedlies.com/

But from a visitors POV it must appear like that. Our site design and content style is allready looking like the one of a multi-million-dollar company, and sometimes it seems to me we ARE working each for 10.

[Elpie]

Thanks for the logo JB!

Hey everyone, look at what Casey has done for us: http://thisandthatmag.com/
When the magazine comes out, Casey is sending me a copy which I will scan and get to all of you who are working on the site.

Casey - on behalf of us all, and most importantly, for the people who have need of the site - THANK YOU!

[Elpie]

Sometimes it seems that some people coming to the site think we are an important agency - here is a great example of what is being said about us (even though we have not and are not soliciting funding - we will say, "thanks" if its offered, but we are not asking!)

In the wake of the terrible tragedy in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, there are a number of agencies that need financial assistance to help those impacted by Katrina. Please help with whatever you can. Here are links to a few of the agencies.

American Red Cross

The Salvation Army

Bush Clinton Katrina Fund

Katrina Evacuee Help Center - Additional links are here.

http://www.roadsterforums.com/index.php

(If anyone wonders how I am finding these links, its just that when my brain turns to mush late at night and my fingers start getting slow, I run some searches to see who is talking about us,  If I find the opportunity to post in forums, I do.  If I come across forums where people are upset because they are having trouble finding good search sites, I respond to those too. 
When I am really tired, I don't work on the site, and just go to work FOR the site )

[mosey]

http://disastersearch.org/index.php?opt ... &Itemid=29

I think this page needs some rewording and would like some other thoughts on it.


Area should be more or less - Location. Or there should be a short description of what Area means. It is a bit vague.

Also not sure if this is possible to make things go quicker why not just do a drop down box of all the available areas? Just a thought....but i noticed it is so far not much of a used area. Just thinking of things that could be improved.

Cheers

Agree that an example would be an excellent addition

[Elpie]

We are working on the wording for all the search forms
My fault there is a delay - I sent a loooong message to Peter at a time when our mail was going nuts, so he didnt get it.
But, with getting busy, I just clean forgot to find the message amongst the 1000 or so in my ds folder and resend.

We've got plenty to keep us going though, and you will have noticed that the site is changing quite a bit at the moment

It *is* happening.

[spignataro]

We are working on the wording for all the search forms
My fault there is a delay - I sent a loooong message to Peter at a time when our mail was going nuts, so he didnt get it.
But, with getting busy, I just clean forgot to find the message amongst the 1000 or so in my ds folder and resend.

We've got plenty to keep us going though, and you will have noticed that the site is changing quite a bit at the moment

It *is* happening.

i got a few suggestions but wont be home for a while to grab them off my pc

[Elpie]

We are working on the wording for all the search forms
My fault there is a delay - I sent a loooong message to Peter at a time when our mail was going nuts, so he didnt get it.
But, with getting busy, I just clean forgot to find the message amongst the 1000 or so in my ds folder and resend.

We've got plenty to keep us going though, and you will have noticed that the site is changing quite a bit at the moment

It *is* happening.

i got a few suggestions but wont be home for a while to grab them off my pc

Might pay to wait and then critique the changes that are already underway Steven

[Elpie]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search
18,000

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... tnG=Search (because a lot of sites picked up our url, but not the Katrina name)
21,000

Cool eh?

[Elpie]

For those who knew of my concerns the other night about the super storm which was hitting NZ, I can say that I am getting an early night tonight and not working on the site from now (9pm) - it is just too cold!

http://www.metservice.co.nz/default/ind ... ss=warning
My city is in the midst of those snow warnings. 

Snow is expected to fall on the lower North Island tonight as a cold snap which paralysed Canterbury today moves north, bringing the biggest fall of the year.

About 5cm fell around Lincoln University, which closed for the day, and many schools around Christchurch also shut.

Canterbury's council offices, libraries and recreational facilities were closed and several parks rendered off-limits due to fears the weight of snow might bring branches down.

Up to 12cm of snow fell at Mt Somers in Ashburton.

Most of the mail for Christchurch city was unable to be delivered, although posties managed to get some mail to surrounding areas in Canterbury, New Zealand Post spokesman Ian Long said.

Today's post would be delivered tomorrow.

"We're just hoping the weather will let up," he told NZPA.

Christchurch Airport was forced to suspend all flights out of the city this morning, but the airport had fully reopened by 2pm, airport spokeswoman Nicole Were said.

The weather appeared to be clearing and the airport was hopeful the backlog of flights could be cleared, she said.

Met Service spokesman Bob McDavitt said by 4.30pm snow from the depression was starting to lap onto the Wellington hills.

Between 40-50cm of snow was forecast for Desert Road.

"Some places in the North Island which haven't had any snow this year are likely to get some dumps," he told NZPA.

The hills around Wellington, the Wairarapa, Manawatu and Wanganui were expected to get 10-20cm of snow above 600m.

"It's the biggest snow fall of the year," Mr McDavitt said.

Late snow is not unusual in the South Island, in areas that get snow in winter, but it is extremely unusual in this part of the country (North Island, I'm in the Manawatu disctrict).  It's snowed here once in my lifetime.  We're getting it now.  Not being prepared for this, and with houses not equipped for handling this cold, I am shivering too much to be able to work.

This is what the storm did:  http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3415504a11,00.html
Apart from some heavy rain, it completely by-passed us.

If anyone could see Nic now they would laugh - this French Canadian guy who is used to snow and cold is wrapped up inside as if it was -20C.    We *were* having temperatures in the mid-low 20C range. Brrr!

[spignataro]

We are working on the wording for all the search forms
My fault there is a delay - I sent a loooong message to Peter at a time when our mail was going nuts, so he didnt get it.
But, with getting busy, I just clean forgot to find the message amongst the 1000 or so in my ds folder and resend.

We've got plenty to keep us going though, and you will have noticed that the site is changing quite a bit at the moment

It *is* happening.

i got a few suggestions but wont be home for a while to grab them off my pc

Might pay to wait and then critique the changes that are already underway Steven

yep....i like the new changes.

[WashURick]

The site looks great guys!  It's great to see that the site is being found by more and more people in need of its services by way of the search engines and publicity. 

[WashURick]

I'm sorta excited.  The company I used to work for (Ideal Software Systems, Inc) is beginning to post their open positions on disastersearch.org this morning.  They're a great group of laid-back people, and it's a really inexpensive place to live, so I sure hope someone finds them and/or they find someone.  It's great to see these possibilities opening up for the survivors of hurricane Katrina, I just hope the resource is as well-utilized as I hope/expect it will be.

[Peter Koch]

Really good news with the growing employment board!

Our biggest problem is still to get the message about the site to the people on the ground. We are heading half a million entries in our evacuee database now and many families could be reunited if they would only know about this opportunity.

Sadly ARC (American Red Cross) has decided to go with microsoft, but look yourself what that mighty company has put together for the evacuees. Don't wanna think about what they will be doing finally with all the addresses in redmont:

    http://www.katrinasafe.com

and then compare with the open source solution:

    http://www.disastersearch.org

Guess that would be worth a story on slashdot....

[deleted user]

Sadly ARC (American Red Cross) has decided to go with microsoft ...:

    http://www.katrinasafe.com

It could help if they included http://www.disastersearch.org in their list of Other Locator Sites.

[Peter Koch]

Sadly ARC (American Red Cross) has decided to go with microsoft ...:

    http://www.katrinasafe.com

It could help if they included http://www.disastersearch.org in their list of Other Locator Sites.

They *ARE* aware of our site. Guess yourself why they are not listing us.

[Elpie]

Sadly ARC (American Red Cross) has decided to go with microsoft ...:

    http://www.katrinasafe.com

It could help if they included http://www.disastersearch.org in their list of Other Locator Sites.

This is the classic Linux vs Microsoft battle! LOL
Linux users vs Microsoft staff (who developed an experimental site to showcase their abilities - its not a MS- company site).
It is created with FrontPage and they do have a professonal- looking contact email at hotmail.

Now I sound as though I am really nasty I am very worried though that the International Red Cross has been instructed to hand over the personal details of around 200,000 people to that site.  Didn't see any problem with the ICRC site staying as is.  Oh well...

[mosey]

I do think the DS site is far more geared towards being user friendly and is much more all-encompassing in comparison.

[spignataro]

why not see if we can get our database to work in conjunction with googles search?

http://www.google.com/katrina.html

cheers

[alwarren]

Just FYI, you guys need to keep your eyes on the news over the next few days.

Houston may be next - http://forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,7727.0.html

[mosey]

As I live in the UK these weather-strikes are quite unheard of (and unexperienced) so hope everyone will be alright

(been through a few typhoons whilst in Asia this summer though!)

[brad]

I have been asked to close this thread as a support forum exists on their site.

FYI This request has come from one of the 'creators' of disastersearch.org

All the best with a great idea/resource.