Katrina a Year Later, from someone who was there.

My friend Michael was down in St Bernard Parish in the weeks and months after Katrina came through, using his skill and knowledge as an architect to help evaluate the condition of the schools in the area. He toured virtually every one of them, taking pictures and working with the local, state, and federal agencies ‘up close and personal’.
He’s just posted fantastic photoessay about some of his time there, interspersed with words from the Powers on High. I found it incredibly moving.

Katrina Peoplefinder Project

Many folks have seen this elsewhere, but just in case.
I spent an hour or two last night doing data entry on the Katrina Peoplefinder Project. If you have some spare time, this is a great way (beyond financial donations), to help out people trying to find relatives and friends in the area.
The nutshell description – there are zillions of resources on the net where folks are posting messages asking about loved ones. The Peoplefinder Project is pulling all those requests and calls together into one database that will be available as a ‘one-stop’ resource.

Donation rates at http://www.redcross.org/

I’m running a small program that’s watching how fast money is flowing into the Red Cross from donations. As of this morning, the rate is running between $9k and $17k A MINUTE.

|Total amt | Last
Datestamp     |donated   |minute
--------------+----------+--------
20050902-1332 | 35332065 | $54340
20050902-1333 | 35344485 | $12420
20050902-1334 | 35354175 | $ 9690
20050902-1335 | 35369140 | $14965
20050902-1336 | 35385620 | $16480
20050902-1337 | 35397525 | $11905
20050902-1338 | 35412485 | $14960
20050902-1339 | 35428895 | $16410
20050902-1340 | 35443220 | $14325
20050902-1341 | 35460745 | $17525
20050902-1342 | 35470625 | $ 9880
20050902-1343 | 35487250 | $16625
--------------+----------+--------

I’ll have a live version of this up and running in the next hour or two.

Update at 16:09pm -The live version is online. See this post.