What can we be doing better? More news?

[Andy Carvin]

I just wanted to start a new thread on things we can improve here. I'm not looking for pie-in-the-sky projects, but tightening up what we're working on, expanding certain features, etc.

In terms of projects, I'd like to see more effort concentrated on PeopleFinder, and determining what, if anything, we need to be doing with it. Also, should we be posted more news about the storm in the blog? The storm just came ashore and no one has mentioned it, for example. Does anyone want to take responsibility for culling breaking news and posting them on the blog? One-paragraph summaries of news stories or first-hand blog accounts would probably suffice.

Other ideas?

[Nancy White]

I'm wondering about local issues - as the storm hits particular communities - do we need to focus news and response through that lens? Pages that then repoint to specific local stuff, or is local media doing a good job of that?

[Nancy White]

Re your question about posting breaking news.... somehow I think that is happening on other fronts so we might best use our energy on relief information. Watchathink?

[Mark A.M. Kramer]

I will take up this task and post here during Central European Time. I am certain others will also follow in cue course.

[Blogs2c.com]

Maybe not the PeopleFinder that you are looking for, but The Assist Network has added a Gustav Evacuee Locator at

http://assistdir.com/gustav

It is like a "Twitter" where people can post messages by zip code. We already had the code, so it was easy to do.

If you know of someone that has evacuated and is safe, please add their name to the list.

--Brian

[Thomas Broadus]

A bit late to the thread but MPB is updating the twitter feed with nothing but news on the storm. Road outages, tornado warning, river flood zones, locations with power outages. We'll be doing so throughout the day.
Can we just port that feed into a blog? May add a bit more news

[Andy Carvin]

Yeah, that may be right. Katrina/Tsunami efforts had more breaking news because no one else was doing it then. Maybe do it as needed, emphasize user-generated news, but otherwise focus on the other tasks at hand?

Nancy White said:

Re your question about posting breaking news.... somehow I think that is happening on other fronts so we might best use our energy on relief information. Watchathink?

[Andy Carvin]

I could add an RSS module for it.

Thomas Broadus said:

A bit late to the thread but MPB is updating the twitter feed with nothing but news on the storm. Road outages, tornado warning, river flood zones, locations with power outages. We'll be doing so throughout the day.
Can we just port that feed into a blog? May add a bit more news

[Andy Carvin]

done.. see homepage

Thomas Broadus said:

A bit late to the thread but MPB is updating the twitter feed with nothing but news on the storm. Road outages, tornado warning, river flood zones, locations with power outages. We'll be doing so throughout the day.
Can we just port that feed into a blog? May add a bit more news

[Andy Carvin]

Olga, _please_ post these wiki-related suggestions on the wiki to-do discussion. This is for higher-level discussions, not smaller edits.

http://gustav08.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2294159%3ATopic%3A3584

Olga Howard said:

How about changing the wiki labels so that people can quickly self-identify and find their information? That way they can quickly scan for what's relevant to them.

"Need Help?"
-list of links for those who need help

"Want to Help?"
- list of links for those who want to help

[Debbie Cerda]

Hi, all! Great job, I can't think of anything that is obviously missing, IMHO.

Just wanted to let you know that while working the late shift at the State Operations Center I shared the wiki last night with staff from other state agencies, including the Texas Department of Insurance, and Dept of Family and Protective Services.

They were extremely impressed, so much that they bookmarked the site!

[Earl McGehee]

I believe there are plenty of sources for news right now. What people want to know is do they still have a house. With everyone evacuated there is no one to call to see if your property survived and CNN doesn't cover that. In the days after Katrina I spent much time taking raw aerial photos from NOAA and lining them up with Google maps so people could see their house from the air shortly after the disaster. I got lots of email from people giving me their address to see if I could find it on a photo.

How can we provide a forum finding and recording for street level damage reports? Is anyone else doing that?

[Debbie Cerda]

Great idea -

The University of Texas Mid-American Geospatial Information Center (MAGIC) works with the Texas Civil Air Patrol, so I'd recommend finding the Louisiana equivalent.

The assessments are completed after re-entry.


Earl McGehee said:

I believe there are plenty of sources for news right now. What people want to know is do they still have a house. With everyone evacuated there is no one to call to see if your property survived and CNN doesn't cover that. In the days after Katrina I spent much time taking raw aerial photos from NOAA and lining them up with Google maps so people could see their house from the air shortly after the disaster. I got lots of email from people giving me their address to see if I could find it on a photo.
How can we provide a forum finding and recording for street level damage reports? Is anyone else doing that?