Spell Relief

During the course of a persons life there occurs events so profound that they leave an indelible mark on their lives. We as a country seem to be experiencing many such events in recent years. Nevertheless, we as a people have a responsibility to each other as human beings. The recent hurricane has illustrated that the burden does not lay solely on those that lost their property and livelihoods. The burden also lays with those of us that were not directly touched by the winds of Katrina.
Although there are plenty stories of despair, there are also stories of perseverance. DirectNIC is one of the largest domain registration companies in the country. Domain registration companies record the name of and sometimes host webpages for individuals and companies. DirectNIC has over a million webpages registered. They prepared well for the storm using generators for power and they made it through relatively unscarred. They were dedicated to the idea of not allowing the webpages that they hosted to go offline. I would like to think that I am that dedicated, but I don’t know. Companies like Google have allowed those not directly in the path of a devastating hurricane to still gain a three dimensional perspective of the storm. Using the Google Earth application, which can be found in the option titled more on Googles’ homepage, you can view recent satellite images of the area. Tilting the images so that they you have a near ground level view can be surreal, especially if you zoom in on the image.
Many companies and news organizations are using technology to reunite people, locate people, and rest fears. They are using electronic bulletin boards and blogs or web logs to list the location of people and list the names of those that have not been located. Some hurricane victim webpages such as the one started by the National Institute for Urban Search & Rescue and San Diego State University, registers the names of missing persons, and updates the list when people are located. This is an evolution from the bulletin boards that people placed names and pictures on after September 11.
If you feel that you want to help but you are not sure how, there are plenty of ways to help. The first would be to donate the basic items that any person of family would need. There are multiple organizations and locations around town that can receive your donations. You can also donate money. Unfortunately, if you choose to do this online there are already at least a dozen frauds that focus on the hurricane relief effort, but don’t use this as a reason not to help. Donate directly to sites that you have heard of offline and not to ones sent to you via email. In the near future, you may even want to consider donating your old computer to the relief effort. An old computer is better than no computer. Here are some sites to get you started.
www.redcross.org
www.salvationarmyusa.org
http://boards.news.yahoo.com/boards/