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August 31, 2005

New Orleans: Communication flatlines, Times-Picayune staff are refugees and... looting or stayin' alive?

Josh Britton at LSU in Baton Rouge has the scoop on the New Orleans Times-Picayune staff (it also explains why nola.com was so silent today):

...The Times-Picayune, having evacuated New Orleans this morning, has temporarily relocated to the LSU Journalism building, where weary staffers will sleep on cots and order takeout tonight after what must have been an exhausting ride up to Baton Rouge.

I spoke briefly with editor Jim Amoss who assured me that the staff was in the process of securing a site in Baton Rouge where they could re-establish operations.

and then meets some photographers who give him more.

I expect the Times-Pic staff will be getting their goodie box from the Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman newspaper any week now, once they can find them. After the Oklahoma City bombing, the Oklahoman staff establlished a tradition of sending food and a card signed by the entire staff to newspapers immersed in hard stories. It was The Journal's turn on March 12, 2003, two weeks after the Station nightclub fire that killed 100 people at a Great White concert.

I blogged then,

Cool colleagues we've never met: Four big boxes of edible goodies arrived at the Journal newsroom today, sent by the newsroom staff of The Daily Oklahoman -- an Oklahoma City group that knows how grueling it is to cover a crisis. Their gift was meant to help fortify those covering The Station nightclub fire and its aftermath.

The chocolate and cookies are going fast, but there'll be popcorn, instant oatmeal, just-add-water noodles, crackers and candy canes for the night staff.

The booty was accompanied by a giant card that read "Thinking of you... From the newsroom of The Daily Oklahoman" signed by more than 50 staffers, some of whom added little messages of encouragement.

We're amazed, and grateful for the gesture.

Doc Searls does a wrap of hurricane TV tonight, then asks what wasn't asked:

Here are some things we want to see (since we are talking mostly about television). Maybe some bloggers can fill us in, beyond the pictures (most of them leveraged from elsewhere on the Web) on Flickr.<

Maps of what's wrecked and what's not. Specifics on roads, bridges, railroads. Truly detailed maps and static graphics are helpful. (CNN should be able to do better than this.) And spare us the crap like "The CNN.com video experience is optimized for Windows Media Player 9 or above." If you have to show video, put it in a format anybody can watch.

The status of cities, counties, towns, parishes, schools, hospitals, military bases, government offices and other institutions. This is helpful to people looking to reach any of those places, or who wonder how people they know might be doing there.

Reports on where to turn on the Web for more complete information than TV can contribute. Lists of local and regional radio stations that are operative and providing useful information.

Relevant advertising. Now is the time to sell ads to public spirited advertisers who have useful and unsensational things to say to viewers.

I have a question for the geek bloggers:

Pull the plug and we're cooked. The Web creaked today under the strain of all the people following the Katrina story online. TV crews were heroic, reporting to people who still power in the rest of the world. Radio was for those in the Gulf who still had batteries, and a radio.
Some who needed local information waited in vain on the side of the interstate all day, hoping someone would pick them up and take them to a shelter. In past disasters, the National Guard rescues people who wait in public spots.

They didn't know that police radios were dying, cell towers were on their last juice, the communications infrastructure was gone. The grid went flat. Nobody knew nothin'.

The elegant cathedral of telecom goes dark, fails miserably, for those in the center of disasters. We who didn't need to be were well-informed, looking through a zoom lens at those whose lives were falling apart.

Geeks, how do we get homegrown power, or a communications infrastructure that's not dependent on external sources at the mercy of weather or bombs? This gives a whole new meanng to "universal access." In some places, they produce electrical energy with solar generators, wind (the storm itself?), bicycles, exercise bikes (plan) I read once about a third-world village powered by kids using a playground merry-go-round. What else can you show us?

AP

A woman walks through chest-deep water as she heads to loot a grocery store in New Orleans as floodwaters continue to rise after Hurricane Katrina made landfall on Monday

Looting? The goods in the stores are already insurance claims, storm-damages. Sen. Mary Landrieu defended those whom, lacking food or water, she had seen taking water from a convenience store during a flyover.

But the video seen last night was of a WalMart, and what was leaving included shirts, cookware, and one happy mother had a cartful of kids' toys. No power, no lights, no TV, but toys for the kids to play with. Maybe in the Superdome, but anywhere there. Okay.

At another store, which I think was identified as a Walgreens, I sa a mother hiding behind the disposable diapers she had just pilfered. A man seemed to have a bag of dry dog food. They seemed to be stealing for others.

But even the young hooligans stealing for the helluva it, what else do they have? Where do you draw the line? Are you saying you wouldn't steal for your family, to stay alive in the uncertainty of the next weeks?

Their jobs are gone, their homes may be under water tomorrow, it's 95 degrees and humid, there's gas in the rising waters, alligators and poisonous snakes are in those waters, and bodies are expected to float up from the picturesque above-ground cemeteries. What does it matter if those imprisoned here grab something to sell from a doomed inventory?

You gonna be the one to say, "Let them eat cake" from the comfort of your living room when you're told that the people have no bread?

Radio guy Lou Josephs begins: "All the big sins covered with one storm, lust and gluttony thats New Orleans and gambling that's the Miss. waterfront."

And moves on to,

WWL Radio 870 (New Orleans) is currently at 25KW..FEMA is trying to get them a portable 50 KW transmitter. Hey DOD has this thing called the KTRUCK that was used in Bosnia by AFRTS thats a studio in small truck. That would work.

Radio no longer is a factor in Biloxi Miss, several of the WVBF Boston air talent I worked with in the 70's worked there, like Charlie Kendall. All the stations were trashed totally.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 3:02 AM | Permalink