Katrina: How to Help

Aft

er Katrina hit New Orleans and the levees broke, the response of government agencies - federal, state and local - was confused, to say the least. But moved by the enormity of the tragedy, private citizens instinctively reached out to help - and with communications along the Gulf Coast in a tangle, many resorted to the Internet.

Katrina Blankenship from Powhatan, Virginia, happened to own the domain name www.katrina.com, which she had been using for her personal business in web design and computer consultation. Since the hurricane, Blankenship got deluged with inquiries about how to help Katrina victims, so she turned her site into a clearinghouse for farmily reunifcation and people offering assistance . She was running it all on a dial-up with one phone and one computer, but her site became so heavily trafficked that Verizon offered a faster connection and the Red Cross sent down 10 extra computers with volunteers to help out. The International Committee of the Red Cross also has a missing persons site.

Serena Howard of Fayetteville Arkansas set up a website, openyourhome.com on the Wednesday after the storm with the aim of helping "maybe 50 families" to find temporary lodging in her area. Now she has a network of some 1,000 volunteers stretching across most of the 50 states, and the mayor of Fayetteville, Dan Kudy, has given her organization the free use of a 40,000 sq. ft. building owned by the city from which to run her operations. Dizzy and hoarse from no sleep, Howard says she is now matching host families with victims at the rate of about 500 a day, and says the "blame game" is irrelevant to her and her work. "Poeple really don't care whose fault it is, or did they get there fast enough—what they care about is a roof over their head, some food and a hot shower."

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark said his site began getting postings related to Katrina on Tuesday, the day the levees broke, and now all disaster-related services are highlighted in red at neworleans.craigslist.org. Matthew Barnson set up homeflood.org, which has forums for temporary housing offers and also chatpages for relief workers seeking to exchange information and tips. Other housing sites include nola.com/forums/homesavailable, which has over 4,000 postings of homes available for evacuees, and katrinahousing.org.

After the evacuation comes the reconstruction, and cleanupjobs.com has lists of people seeking work, companies seeking employees and companies offering emergency services in the disaster area.

While saving human life remains the top priority, many people also worried about the welfare of pet animals, many of whom had to be left behind in the emergency. petfinder.com/disaster provides information on who to call to find information about a missing pet, and also gives addresses for temporary shelters where evacuees can leave pets to be cared for. For those who want to take in "animal refugees", bestfriends.org has a service matching homeless animals with host families.