ShelterFinder
From Katrina Help Info
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|ShelterFinder home| - [help for volunteers (http://katrinahelp.info/wiki/index.php/ShelterFinder_Volunteer_Instructions)] - [usability feedback (http://katrinahelp.info/wiki/index.php/ShelterFinderUsabilityIssues)] - [technical development (http://katrinahelp.info/wiki/index.php/Technical_Development)]
| Table of contents |
How this project started... Katrina PeopleFinder
Dozens of sites were established to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina find their loved ones, and for reporting missing people.
This created difficulties for people trying to locate missing persons, as they needed to search dozens of separate websites, databases and forums.
Realizing this, huge teams of volunteers have collected, copied and scraped information from many separate places into one single, searchable, resource at katrinalist.net (http://www.katrinalist.net)
Katrina PeopleFinder (http://www.katrinalist.net) is a massive, spontaneous open community effort to help the people affected by the disaster, responding to the information needs as they arise.
ShelterFinder
After the immediate aftermath of the hurricanes, there is still a need for clearer information flows to and from shelters.
Longer-term evacuee shelters will need longer-term help and support, but its still not easy to get a clear overview of
- where shelters are
- current shelter status
- how to contact shelters
- how local volunteers are already helping
- how new volunteers can also help
Shelterfinder Goals and Cooperation Plan
Goals
- To be used by each individual and relief organisation as a repository
of shelter data
- To serve as a platform to support relief information flow and shelter
communication between volunteers of various organisations and shelter user base
- To work collaboratively with other digital intiatives to ensure max
synergy effect
- To develop the tool functionality as necesary to support wider and
more efficient usage
Cooperation plan
- Compile a list of all organisations involved in shelter relief, and contacts of operatives
- Coordinate data format adoption where possible
- Liaise with shelter operatives to establish working relationship and ensure coordination among shelter workers
For example:
- The [Red Cross's Asia Quake site at http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/epi] asks for information about the missing person's parents. This would make sense with very common names.
- Address internationalization - not just different character sets, but different cultures. Would different information be considered significant in other cultures, e.g., names of a person's parents?
- What other kinds of information needs to be exchanged with natural disasters? Missing/safe people, shelters, and pets are important, but what about infrastructure, potential volunteers/donation, etc
How can you help? Volunteers Instructions
Our task list (http://209.237.227.249/search.php?action=search&state=%3D+sort%2Fgroup+%3D&showTasks=CHECKED&showSummary=CHECKED) shows you the current state of our data, broken down by state.
Help us update information for your local shelters. Search for shelters in your area by city or state. Post a message with your fresh information for the shelter, which our data administrators will be alerted to and update.
If you'd like to do more, take responsibility for a state or area, or to help with outreach work or coding, see our Volunteers Instructions (http://katrinahelp.info/wiki/index.php/ShelterFinder_Volunteer_Instructions) and get involved.
This is a voluntary, non-commercial project, which shares data with agencies as appropriate, but also safeguards the privacy of contact details. This server has been provided by Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/), and other coordination and support has come from Social Source Foundation (http://socialsource.blogspot.com/), CivicSpace Labs (http://civicspacelabs.org/home/) and Salesforce.com Foundation (http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/)
Hosting plan
How to contact ShelterFinder
- Join our Mailing List (http://groups.google.com/group/Shelterfinder) and post a message, the team will get back to you asap
- Email: shelterfinder at shelterfinder dot org
- Skype: Shelterfinder (voice and chat)
or Leave a Phone Message (http://shelterfinder.blogspot.com) Beta, needs testing
Task List
- Critical Immediate Tasks
- Update current shelter information
- Recruit more volunteers
- Raise awareness and use of this resource
- Non-Critical Tasks
- Update name servers for ShelterFinder.org (Adam at Technorati)
- move PHP code-base onto multi-developer OSS CVS basis
- Longer term tasks
- establish contact with agencies for clearer information flows next time
- publish xml/rdf schemas
Team Members
sign yourself up, and claim something on the task list
- Anand Madhvani - Technical Lead - website, database and usability
- Zacker - Wiki gardener, mailinglist creator
- Kieran Lal kieran at civicspacelabs dot org
- Paola Di Maio - shoving around, planning and resources, shelter xml, RDF p2paid.org
- Josh Knauer - data gathering - knauer at maya dot com
- Franklin, code
- Judith Barnett - Project Lead for first several weeks of project.
- Wendy - willing to help with wiki gardening, other duties as assigned
- User:austinshelter - willing to help with server space, site hosting, mysql database management, web design, online meetings, project management
- LaDonna Wernersbach - I live in the Dallas, TX area. I am willing to do whatever you need me to do most from my area and for the site. Just let me know.
- Emma Cox
- Anna Khasin
- Tim Murphy - Geocoding.
Data Gathering Volunteers
- Sarah - Houston Shelters
- Carla
- Anna Boroughs - Western States
- Ruth - searching recent news articles for all states;
our thanks to Chris Houser (http://bluweb.com/us/chouser/gmapez/) for Google maps code
Time Zones
Please keep in mind that some of us are in very different time zones.
- Anand - working/travelling in Spain - having problems getting online and doing dev work as laptop stolen (grrr) but checking status intermittently - Anand 03:51, 14 Oct 2005 (EDT)
- Paola - Live on yim megavegasky +7 gmt
- LaDonna - Live near Dallas, TX. Can be reached by e-mail easiest but on AOL & Yahoo as hpladonna often.
- Tim Murphy - Raleigh NC. -500, but acting like -800.
Milestones
- initial search and data entry at temporary site: www.dosima.org/katrina
- Current live data:
- 1100 records gathered and entered so far.
- 1260 - Anand 16:54, 15 Sep 2005 (EDT)
- ShelterFinder v2.0 (http://209.237.227.249/) live Anand 19:25, 16 Sep 2005 (EDT)
- Google Maps integrated (http://www.shelterFinder.org) -Anand 25 Sep 2005 (EDT)
- improved data allocation and monitoring tools on site (http://209.237.227.249/search.php?action=search&state=%3D+sort%2Fgroup+%3D&showTasks=CHECKED&showSummary=CHECKED) -Anand 30 Sep 2005 (EDT)
- ShelterFinder.org (http://www.ShelterFinder.org) URL now live -Anand 08:28, 1 Oct 2005 (EDT)
