Katrina: Outpouring of Compassion, Creativity Online

10:30 AM Sep 04, 2005

Love MoveOn or hate them -- they've posted a free housing database (co-sponsored by a variety of frequent MoveOn partners, including JohnKerry.com which never deployed its treasury to better effect) to match folks in needs of lodging with people volunteering their spare bedrooms, basements, dens, and fold-out couches across the U.S. As of this writing, it claims 115,537 beds. No political litmus test required.

The Red Cross, meanwhile, has this database to match separated relatives with no way to get in touch, and of course, you can search for your local chapters to volunteer or donate blood. They're co-sponsirng katrinahousing.org, another hub for donated rooms. Air America Radio has opened a public voicemail system for the disconnected.

Nola.com has an extensive Katrina section, including this touching pets rescue database and its own missing persons list. There's still another missing persons index at Mississippi's Gulf Coast News, another at WWLTV-New Orleans, and yet another at hurricanerefugee.org. The New Orleans Craigslist is also doing yeoman duty, along with others in the affected region: Austin, Baton Rouge, Houston, Jackson, Mobile, Montgomery, Pensacola and Shreveport. Yahoo has a collection of topical message boards. There's a burgeoning Katrina wiki.

Ubiquitous Google has seen its mashable maps system ingeniously deployed to cobble together a collaborative online map of what's going on in the communication-starved city. Google Earthers, meanwhile, are churning out before-and-after image overlays of various areas.

It's hardly possible to marshal even a fractional collection of the countless blogs covering the beat in countless different ways; the Katrina Aftermath blog is noteworthy because it's open to public posting. There are just as many calls to donate; perhaps you did so in response to Friday's International Blogging for Hurricane Relief Day, a community-level spontaneous generation of cyberspace originated by Andy Carvin.

Though in their fundamentals they're not really specific Katrina responses, you'll see countless images from the ground at Flickr, and enough tagged news to keep you reading indefinitely at del.icio.us.

One seeming lacuna (at least, I haven't found it yet) is the absence of some sort of comprehensive directory of employers willing to make matching donations; a conservative blogger's Americans Aiding Americans is logging some employee match programs in a list dedicated to tracking corporate America's response, but some kind of distributed collaborative database would clearly be in order here.

Update: There's another good collection of resources at the UK Guardian's newsblog. I've intentionally made no effort to sift the numerous fundraising appeals out there -- though surely this is the most fundamentally crucial response of all, nifty web applications not yet encompassing the power to stitch wounds, erect shelter or satisfy a human's caloric requirements. But the Where To Send Donations For Katrina blog is collecting a diverse (if somewhat anarchic) assortment of information about where, how and what to donate.

Another Update: Good tips on how to donate by the excellent Phil Anthropoid, who knows a thing or two on the subject (short version: cash is king). Credit where due, Instapundit has logged a pretty comprehensive list of relief organizations accepting donations. My personal fave relief body, Doctors Without Borders, is not accepting Katrina donations, but is a worthy recipient any day of the year: the Gulf Coast, unfortunately, is not the world's only disaster zone. And keep in mind that malicious, structural neglect of the poor and marginalized is a crucial theme to the Katrina story ... as Nathan Newman suggests, a gift to the excellent activists at ACORN serves both the interests of immediate relief and those of advocacy for a more equitable rebuilding.

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