Wampum

For the past week I've been to busy to post, even the note that yesterday's SCOTUS ruling on campaign finance contained the Court's first mention of the word "blog" was a noted-but-not-posted kind of thing.

On the 15th, while I was still in Geneva I sent the following to the NANOG list:

After the Katrina landfall a diverse group of wireless people started organizing a relief effort, culminating in work around Waveland. There was also a group from the NPGS in Monterey, who worked on the Boxing Day Tsunami aftermath.

Does anyone have a similar contact set?

At about the same time, Kim Davis who works for the IANA wrote an update on ICANN's blog. Since then it has been a blur of hard work. For no particular reason I became a skype contact of the last remaining engineer at the NAP on Boutilliers Hill, east of Port au Prince, and spent the weekend of the 15th and 16th working contacts in the industry and the USG (State and Southern Command) to get diesel to the NAP to keep the generators running. On the 17th Reynold Guerrier had managed to scrounge up 56 gallons of diesel, moving the NAP's dry tank fail point some 8 hours, into the morning of the 18th, with battery fail point some 8 hours later. Noon Eastern on the 18th I deplaned at Newark and sat down at a hotspot to start work. The chain of consequences letters then reached into the Whitehouse, the DoJ, State, and Southern Command, which released 5 jerrycans of 54 gallons each and the Dominican Republic embassy release another 2 jerrycans to Reynold late in the day of the 18th, which made the Boutillier facility fuel-secure through Friday.

The Boutillier facility is where Haiti's Internet Service Providers (approximately 5) maintain their network infrastructure, datacenters, an Internet Exchange Point (IXP), which allows Internet users to connect within the country, and microwave links to the Dominican Republic. The network facilities are housed in two buildings on the crest of a ridge on the Haiti/D.R. border. Here are some photos of the hill and antenna farm and random snapshots.

Meanwhile Mary Beth had been pursuing information about an orphanage where two four-year old girls, twins, were waiting for final approval of their paperwork for adoption by the professor who taught her ConLaw class during the Fall term. Susie Madrak wrote a summary on the 18th that captures the complexity -- How Bloggers Helped Save The Orphans – And The Haiti Internet and again on the 20th -- Still Trying To Save The Haitian Internet -- progressive and feminist bloggers to Congressional staffers. Not in Susie's post of the 20th is the rest of the trajectory -- members (Chellie Pingree, Earl Blumenaur, Pat Murray, ... ) to the State Department and Homeland Security to the Speaker's Office.

On the 19th Reynold spent the morning at the airport with ministers and posted the following to NANOG:

We would like to provide to the haitian government a UC systems with several branches:

• President office -- 10 Endpoints
  
• PM office -- 10 endpoints
  
• 12 mayor city hall offices -- 3 for each -- 36 endpoints
  
• Ministries -- (9 differents locations 3 for each) -- 27
  
• Communications Center -- 20
  
• emergency Clusters -- 14

Total -- 117 endpoints

and started work getting a T3 run from the hill down to the airport where the Haitian government was now located.

That afternoon I replied to someone from Google [ask if they want their names] who responded to my note(s) to NANOG

... one of the things we don't have is current imagery. Everyone uses Google Maps, but the images are pre-event. Reynold responded to me a couple of days ago when I asked the address where his wife and small children are (their house collapsed), see below:
[1/17/10 5:15:10 PM] reygji: wshe lost it when she tried to escape the house
[1/17/10 5:16:52 PM] reygji: there is practically no address system in Haiti
[1/17/10 5:16:58 PM] Eric Brunner-Williams: ok
[1/17/10 5:17:01 PM] reygji: in Port-au-Prince now
[1/17/10 5:17:12 PM] reygji: no street
[1/17/10 5:17:24 PM] reygji: it's practically rubble
[1/17/10 5:17:44 PM] reygji: my only point of contact is the phone number and my email
At some point the base imagery needs to be replaced. I'm not talking about the Google car (it would have trouble finding the streets), but Google doing something Google is good at -- getting images tied to space and making a incrementally completing mosaic available. ...

Within minutes I'd this reply

Ok, I think we can check one thing off your list... :-)

Downloadable KML overlay for Google earth with updates.

Post-Earthquake imagery.
http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/#imagery

All I did was have a blank mind (one of my qualities) while walking two blocks to pick up my 1st grader wondering "what could Google do?" I skyped this to Reynold who started to pull the images (large data sets) so that the best current imagery could be local to the Haitian governmental network segment (the NAP and IX servers. It was that quick. The next day I wrote a friend at Google, copying the Geo-Data people who'd contacted me from NANOG:

this kind of stuff makes me proud to even know you, let alone use your product.

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-imagery-of-port-au-prince.html

Somehow file transfer made me ask if Reynold needed an account on a machine outside of Haiti, so I set that up on the machine next to the machine that hosts this blog and he pushed family pictures so that I could get them to State.

The second refueling took place yesterday. Another set of jerrycans. The NAP is fuel secure through Monday. But Reynold's wife Dominique, and their children Nikki and Aurelia, ages 3 and 1, remain in the Delmas region of Port au Prince.

Now back to work.

Posted by EBW at 06:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I just noticed on the crawl on the IRNA (English) website this story Pakistan's quake-hit areas to have FM radio stations, date line Islamabad. Now why did that catch my attention?

---

REMINDER
Shaheen Sehbai the founder and editor of the South Asia Tribune, asked us to post this URL for people wanting to send help to the Kashmir Earthquake relief: LINK. We are very sad to learn the South Asia Tribune is now closed. Tomorrow I'll write about why. It has to do with opposition, natural disaster, and control of information.

---

Because on Sept 6th Harold Field wrote to a Hurricane Katrina technical volunteer mailing list (there are other wireless lists, as well as the ARRL section lists) to report that the Media Access Project and Houston Independent Media had obtained emergency licensing from the FCC to operate a low power FM radio inside the Huston Astrodome for the 30,000+ people sheltered there, had set up a self-powered transmitter, and were distributing radios when ... FEMA ordered them to stop. Pointedly.

There were a lot of idle men with guns military at the Houston Astrodome those two weeks, and stage management of "success" was the primary goal of Bush/Rove/Cheritoff/Brown, and the uncomfortable-with-poverty MSM that couldn't distinguish between sudden collective domestic destitution and looting, and relief organizations, in particular the RC, that are deeply, structurally committed to a top-down tightly-controlled definition of humanitarian assistance.

Here's the (updated in part) summary from the Media Access Project and Houston Independent Media on the Astrodome LPFM project, which was finally allowed to operate on Sept. 13th, a week after they became both FCC licensed and operationally capable. As Hannah Sassaman (Prometheus Radio Project) noted at the time, �It smacks of the same bureaucratic structure that kept food and water away from the Superdome in New Orleans.�

I chronicled this on the original Wireless Internet Provider Relief Efforts group blog, which I've since moved from Blogger to WP. The originals are the Sept 6th Low-Power FM Radio at the Houston Astrodome and the Sept. 10th Update: Low-Power FM Radio at the Houston Astrodome.

In case anyone's forgotten what a constant stream of senseless panics and fuckups were the norm, here's a reminder from a blogger who was there on the 8th, via Boing Boing link.

Wireless volunteers are still bringing connectivity, allowing data (yes, evacuees need browsers, if only to enter data on the IE-MANDITORY FEMA website) and voice (over data) communications. There are teams working East Biloxi (Community Center in Chau Van Duc Buddhist Temple) and around Angiers, and I haven't heard of FEMA paying for anything, other than providing meals and fuel. Ditto for the RC.

The core values of the Pakistani state (aka the Punjabi state military) includes radios along with tents and blankets and food and water and ... to Kashmir. Information, even information that comes from Iran or India or the BBC or ... is vital to the affected population and the humanitarian relief efforts on the ground.

Here in the Land of the Free information is controlled. When you need to know something, you will be told, by an authorized information agency. MB pointed this out, and what needs to be done, by bloggers, on the oh-so-avant dKoz, where it didn't even make a splash.

Posted by EBW at 08:15 AM | Permalink

Well, at least the bits doing Hurricane Katrina relief and not completely defined by subordinance to FEMA. MSNBC just ran a story that's been a couple of days in the making. Here's the link. They finally got into the Waveland area, where Mac Dearman's been leading one of the wireless ISP volunteer efforts, and Rainbow Tribe are running a free kitchen and (as usual) doing unauthorized good. I'm tickled that MSNBC put a photo of some NPGS students on the spash page. I grew up inside the NPGS, and students are invariably nice, if sometimes clumsey. For another (wicked rare) story on some part of the USG that worked, despite the pervasive brain-death and political charades in Occupied Washington City, point a browser at Indian Country Today, where the Eastern Office of the BIA actually did FEMA's job for FEMA, and didn't card to make sure only members of Federally Recognized Indian Tribes (aka "FRITs") got ice and food and gas and more.

Right after Converge South we're scheduled to replace the mobile VSAT and wireless team from Mobile Learning Labs, who are returning to Toronto, in Unoccupied Canada.

Update: The South Bend Tribune (Indiana) is covering the story also. Here's the link. There is one error, the SBT attributes this:

That team brought a number of vehicles, including a 33-foot RV loaded with Wi-Fi and satellite gear as well as emerging technologies for carrying high-bandwidth connections over a range of miles.

to the team from the NPGS.

The correct attribution is on the side of the trailer. I'm pleased to see Carl Malmud quoted. He documented my 3rd major network buildout for Dan Lynch's InterOp, a dog's age ago.

Posted by EBW at 11:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

We learned a few days ago that this had come for us via fax. Today we got the hard copy.

Now the planning begins in earnest. Any and all input welcome as to how to best accomplish what I first discussed on September 4th and again on September 9th.

(Addendum: We realized that FEMA had made a slight error, as we'd requested to be tasked in Hurricane Katrina areas. That additional clearance will be forthcoming.)

(Addenda deux: We get mail: ... this is all the clearance we will need to do anything, anywhere. The name on the letter just changed to Rita after Rita was the new kid in town. :-) That fixes that.

Posted by MB Williams at 06:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

My penalty for pointing out to Michael Anderson that we (Part-15/WISTA/Radio Relay/Community Wireless/...) weren't the only ones suffering from being in the FEFFA ("Front Edge FEMA FUBAR Area", said like FEBA for "Front Edge Battle Area" in milspeak), trying to provide communications infrastructure where FEMA and the ARC haven't hopelessly f*cked things up (and yes, ARC is operating at the same level of non-competence as FEMA), in the Bay St. Louis / Waveland / Long Beach / Pearlington / Diamond Head / Gulfport areas -- and letting him know about the Victor Perra (American Motercoach Assn) and Peter Pantuso (American Bus Assn) attempts to contact FEMA to provide buses to evacuate NOLA -- and the Landstar/RNC/FEMA sweetheart deal that has killed or sickened a whole bunch of people already ...

[Sorry about the comples run-on and run-away sentence structure(s)]

Was that Michael tasked me to contact Victor or Peter and talk them into loaning the project five (5) buses for two (2) months, with the possibility, however remote, that they could be paid after the fact from the vast amount of cash FEMA is swimming in, and doles out to Haliburton, Landstar, and their ilk. Ouch!

P.S. FEMA issued us an access letter for the hurricane affected area(s) on Saturday, September 24th, 22 days after the effort began, and Micahel contacted the FCC, FEMA, and the ARC. We plan to replace Jim and Heather Stacy, who came down from Toronto with a Mobile Learning Labs trailer providing (surprise) VSAT+ WISP + laptops on or about October 10th.

The pre-sales engineer in the foreground is about 3' tall and is present for scale.

Posted by EBW at 10:48 AM | Permalink

This appeared in today's eWeek. I've reformatted it, and there are some annotations (because I can't help myself from technical annotation).

VOIP to the rescue.
News Analysis: The American Red Cross uses VOIP for all of the same reasons you should, but for the Red Cross, the stakes are vastly higher.

Imagine what it must be like to attempt a phone call in the littered wasteland that was once the central Gulf Coast of the United States. Not only are there no phones, there are no phone lines, no central offices, nothing. While there is cell service�T-Mobile was apparently running at full capacity within a day or two�sites are swamped with high priority calls. Making a phone call can be nearly impossible. Worse, the American Red Cross is taking the lion's share of the responsibility for handling the relief effort. This private charity runs the shelters, helps support survivors, hands out everything from food to blankets, and tries to reunite families. But without phone service, the job is tough indeed.

While the Red Cross makes good use of the hundreds of ham radio operators that are willing to provide weeks of unpaid labor, there are never enough of them. Because of its critical communications needs, the Red Cross has turned to VOIP (voice over IP). But this isn't the VOIP you're thinking of. This is telephony on the edge. This is a phone service that exists in partially ruined Kmart stores, sports stadiums and firehouses. A phone service that must serve the needs of volunteers, managers and thousands of survivors. A phone service that must provide access to the Internet and to the world.

What the writer omits is that to work with the ARC one has to take several classes, a 3-hour Introduction to Disaster Services video course, and one or more of Shelter Operations, etc. While not an onerous requirement in theory, in practice these are an absolute bar to first tech responders, and net out to the exclusion of non-corporate technical service providers. The Part-15 project, 300+ WISP and VOIP volunteer engineers, after 9 days of attempting to coordinate with both FEMA and the ARC, still has no standing with either.

So what do you do when you must communicate but there's no infrastructure? You use a global network of satellites to carry your connections. In this case, the Red Cross uses VSATs (very small aperture terminals) to provide the critical links. Those VSATs are being assembled, tested and prepared for shipment at the national headquarters of the American Red Cross in Falls Church, Va., a suburb of Washington, D.C.

There a team of volunteers made up of ham radio operators and engineers from defense and aerospace companies is building the VSAT equipment by hand from parts donated to the Red Cross. These VSATs then provide a TCP/IP link to the outside world. Of course, you can route nearly any kind of phone call over a VSAT.

I actually haven't noticed [m]any volunteers from the defense and/or aerospace companies, but the academic and commercial companies and network operators and especially the wireless non-commercial and commercial communities are all over the wireless and voice over ip efforts that are coordinated over the net.

The next paras are troubling. The architecture the ARC is on record as fielding is hierarchical, and will completely fail if there is a network partition, and the ARC's HQ and the disaster area are not in the same surviving functional network partitions. Or if WDC is the disaster area. Failure by design, for ease of centralized management. Our VoIP architecture is not so {stupd,ambitious}, communicating shelters, etc., {trust,require} other communicating shelters, etc., to build a local phone book, and exchange them, and "switch in the field" using open source software, not cisco's propriatary CM product. "Doner cost-effectiveness" isn't the only axis for optimization.

The Red Cross chose VOIP because it allowed phones to be set up in advance with a PBX located at the headquarters. In addition, because VOIP phones could share the bandwidth with Internet access and other traffic, it made more efficient use of the VSAT link that other methods might have.

According to David Craig, Senior Engineer for the Response Technology unit of the Red Cross, the organization is currently using Cisco Call Manager to handle its IP voice network. Craig cited the ease of set up and the ease of use as important reasons to use VOIP as well. "There's no switching in the field," Craig said.

He noted that the satellite equipment and the VOIP and networking equipment would frequently be put into operation by people with little formal training, so it had to be something ordinary people could do. This way, everything can be configured before it's shipped, and then simply plugged in when it arrives on-site. Craig said he also likes the fact that the disaster phone system can be managed from anywhere. He said that the Red Cross only has two employees in the network operations center. All of the rest of the staff are volunteers. He said that this way, volunteers can keep an eye on the network and on the voice traffic at all times. This is a plan that the organization has been using since Sept. 11, 2001, when it was first put into operation, Craig said. "We want this to be cost-effective for our donors," Craig noted. He said that the ease of deployment, as well as the effective use of bandwidth, accomplished that.

The deployment of the VSAT systems and the IP phones to Red Cross communications centers in the region impacted by Hurricane Katrina began on Sept. 7. Now volunteers are preparing a hundred more VSATs and hundreds of IP phones for shipment in the next few days. Everywhere they go, VOIP will go with them, providing some of the first reliable phone service since the storm hit.

We'll stop in at the ARC VSAT assembly point. They are duplicating what we've already built, as MB's pointed out, and what we've (P15 vols) have already deployed in Pascagoula three days before the ARC started its VoIP/VSAT work. Our own VoIP team just pulled out of Kelly AFB, our prior ARC tasking, as in the grand chaos of FEMA and the ARC, they didn't know that SBC had provided service to Kelly AFB -- the ARC hasn't given us another tasking.

Posted by EBW at 08:04 AM | Permalink

FEMA Regions directed by presumptive incompetents:

Region X (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington) -- John Pennington (Bush, Apt. 12/2001), Four-term WA State legislature (Rep., 18th District), major accomplishments: legislation to exempt sales tax on rebuilding or reconstruction following floods in 1996.

Region VIII (Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) -- David I. Maurstad (Bush, Apt. 10/2001), (Ex-Lt. Gov., Ex-State Sen., Ex-Beatrice Mayor), major accomplishments: authored Nebraska's ban on partial birth abortion.

Region VII (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska) -- Dick Hainje (Bush, Apt. 10/2001), Three term SD State legislature (Rep., 18th District), major accomplishments: assistant. majority leader. A fire chief in real life, so the presumption of incompetency is less.

Western readers take note. Those are your last best hopes. Party hacks. Unaccomplished party hacks.

Posted by EBW at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The kindest thing the Portland Press Herald said in their endorsement of my run for the legislature last year was that I was able to come up with creative solutions for difficult problems. Well, I've spent the past 48 hours trying to live up to that remark. I've come up with, and summarily discarded for various reasons a number of ways to put the VSAT to its best use, which I feel must fulfill these three criteria:

1) Its use must not take up resources which would otherwise go to the relief effort;

2) It must directly aid evacuees and survivors; and

3) It must be accessible for bloggers and new media journalists who want to report directly from effected areas.

At this point, I have an idea, but need help fleshing out the possibilities. Within a 200 mile radius of New Orleans and the effected Gulf Coast region, there are a number of national forests (DeSoto, Kisatchie, Conecuh) and the Gulf Island National Seashore. All of these have camping facilites, though all are presently closed at this time. Most will remain closed for two reasons: One, damage to the facilities, and two, lack of Forest Service personnel, as many rangers and administrators have been tasked to help in the recovery efforts.

If these campgrounds were made safe, they could provide living space, including basic facilities such as toilets and water, first to those who have come down to help in or report on the continuing crisis, and then later, as a network of staffed campgrounds open, as a kind of "reverse underground railroad", to try and help those evacuees who have been removed from the area to get back home. Most campgrounds lack phones and electricity, so our VSAT, with its extensive battery power, is really the only means of setting up a communications network, for recovery volunteers, evacuees and alternative media reporters. Other VSATs can be set up as more campgrounds are made inhabitable.

The diaspora issue is one that has been increasingly important to me, as I see more and more people being sent farther and farther away, including here in Maine. While FEMA and private charities are footing the bill for people to leave the area, I have concerns as to whether they will financially assist the evacuees to return home. Recent reports that some of the wealthy in New Orleans would prefer the poor not to return only adds fuel to that worry. I believe that part of any long-term Progressive plan for the region must include financial and logistical assistance to help evacuees return to rebuild their homes, should they so desire.

So I think the first step is evaluating the damage to these national forest campgrounds. Then, a plan can be developed to present to the Forest Service to organize a modern CCC effort to clean up and rebuild those on an ongoing basis. While the effort will be volunteer, I believe with a solid plan, we can get sponsors for equipment and food.

One of the benefits of working away from relief efforts in heavily populated areas is that we can be much more autonomous and independent. The Forest Service, with its trend towards farming out services to concessionaires, who in turn use volunteers to staff their campgrounds, seems a good target for such a plan.

We're heading DC over the weekend and will be there early next week as well. In the meantime, I'd like to hear suggestions, critiques, whatever, about this idea. It would certainly take some organization, but if we start small, as in one campground at a time, it is feasible.

Note: I ran into a friend yesterday who worked in radio for ten years in New Orleans. He believed this Administration would like nothing better than to just mow down the protected forests along the Gulf Coast, to sell off for industrial development.

Posted by MB Williams at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Denis Wingo's smalll group is deploying the same technology we're deploying. His team reached Pascagoula yesterday.

Hi folks

Just got back from Pascagoula Mississippi and here is what we found.

Power is back up in Jackson county to within 1 mile of the beach. The storm surge from Kat was 25 feet high and reached 5 miles inland at some points. The county seat in Pascagoula lost everything in the first floor of their building, principally the Sheriff's department from water 5 feet deep in the building and it was 4 miles from the beach.

Fairly reliable cell service has been restored to the Pascagoula area and none of their towers went down. Further west service becomes spotty although the Southern Link Walkie Talkie mode works in many places where the cell service does not work.

There is Gas in Pascagoula and it does not seem to be rationed.

The Sheriff's and the City of Pascagoula have lost all of their computers and the phone service. We installed a Wild Blue Internet over satellite (VSAT) dish today for the Sheriff's department although they are critically short of computers. FEMA and the U.S. National Guard have semi-reliable internet and the landlines are working in the command center there.

50% of the Sheriff's have lost their homes and 95% of the City of Pascagoula. Don't believe the crap that is in the media that these folks only need help coordinated through FEMA or the Red Cross. Churches in the area are all taking goods and redistributing them and they will take anything you bring. The government just wants money. The Churches will take money as well.

We are taking our solar generation system to the Northrup Grumman Shipyard tomorrow and installing a second WB dish. Those things rock!

Dennis Wingo, SkyCorp Incorporated

Google key: VSAT, Wildblue, Katerina, FEMA, Red Cross, Pascagoula, Wireless Relief

Posted by EBW at 07:53 AM | Permalink

The blog documenting the Wireless Internet Provider (WISP) Relief Efforts is now up. I'm one of the three co-editors, as well as one of the remote sysadmins providing follow-the-sun coverage of the ad hoc VoIP servers (that are actually located in San Francisco).

I'll write about the policy issues here on Wampum, and the stories I know are being suppressed. On KatrinaCleanup I won't, as FEMA and the ARC (American Red Cross) have issues with reportage, let alone fact pattern analysis.

On an obscure electrical storage note, we were fortunate yesterday to find four AGM deep-cycle batteries, which doubles our VSAT service hours, before we head for the closest ARC-managed temporary resettlement center. The battery vendor charged us one-third of list, since a) it is end-of-season, and b) the batteries need charging, and c) we're assisting the Hurricane recovery effort. Kudos for Ed's Batteries on Spring Road in Westbrook Maine.

Posted by EBW at 09:02 AM | Permalink

Earlier this week, I floated the idea of setting up mobile ISPs via satellite once refugee centers were established. While our plans are to head as close to the Gulf Coast as feasible, it appears that centers are now being set up as far away as Michigan and Colorado. News reports indicate that computers and phones are making their way into the Astrodome, but it's clear from the mobile satellite lists I troll that for millions of displaced in effected regions, it could be weeks before they even have electricity and water, let alone cable and phone service.

So what are the actual logistics of setting up a mobile satellite mini-ISP? It really depends as to whether electricity is available or not.

If electricity is reliable, a basic satellite ISP with wireless capability would include:

1) a tripod satellite dish and modem, available from a DirecWay ($1499) or Starband ($1599) vendor. Monthly business service (12 month commitment) ranges from $99 - $129, depending upon vendor.

2) A wireless router, available at most electronic stores for under $80.

3) 8 - 10 computers, preferably donated. If not, reconditioned models are available off EBay for less than $200.

4) A portable shelter, such as those used by fair vendors, available at most sporting good stores for under $150.

If electricity is not available (and to be honest, these are the people who will most need our help), the set up is a little more complicated, but still easily doable. Add to the list above:

5) a bank of deep cycle batteries, either 4-6 6 volt, or 2-3 12 volt group 31s, at a total cost of $250 - $400.

6) A 2000 to 3000 kilowatt inverter, preferably with a three stage 100 amp charger, for converting the DC in the batteries to 110 volt AC current. Depending upon the model, these run new between $800 and $1500, though I was able to pick up a high-end reconditioned one off of EBay for less than $600.

7) A means of recharging the battery bank, either through a gas-powered generator ($500 to $1000, depending upon decible range and kilowatt output) or solar panels and controller (around $1500 for the amount necessary to keep the battery bank fully charged.) Even with solar, I would recommend a small (1KW) backup generator, in case of inclement weather: $250 - $500.)

With the battery bank and inverter, you need a decent transportation vehicle, as the batteries weigh about 60lbs apiece, as does the inverter. A small (15 - 18 ft) towable trailer with living quarters for the ISP administrators would be the best case scenario, but a rented trailer from UHaul would do just as well.

To be honest, it doesn't take a certified electrician to get this set-up off and running. I installed our inverter and battery bank in an afternoon. Training individuals to set up and point the dish takes a few hours as well. With experience, the time is greatly reduce; I can set up and point our dish in good conditions in fifteen minutes or less.

Since we have all the equipment (we will be investing in a new generator, as our 1KW Honda knock-off can't sustain our battery bank without shore power for more than a few days), we can be guinea pigs with pretty much gas and ISP-upgrade funding. But to get the second set-up off and running (hopefully at the same time we set up the first one) will take between $2000 (with electricity) and $4000 (without electricity), as well as volunteers to man the operation. It would probably take 3-4 weeks to obtain all the equipment and have it delivered to a staging area somewhere in the South, say, to the drive-way of some unsuspecting lawyer in Greensboro.

Eric has offered up his years of tech experience to FEMA and the relief effort, but we're not holding our collective breath. I think we need to take action ourselves. It's also clear that although the US media may be slowly awaking from its previous catatonic state, they're still not willing to fully cover the ineptitute and criminal (or at least, morally bankrupt) behavior of the federal relief organization. Foreign media (via Drum) is currently picking up some of the slack, but we, the people, have the responsibility to do the job ourselves. Just as we saw in last year's election, it's was no longer enough to let the Washington insiders run the campaigns; the grassroots got Kerry to 49%. We can't sit by our keyboards in our comfy living rooms and expect to get out the real story - we have to do it ourselves. For the sake of the hundreds of thousands currently neglected and just as easily abandoned by this Administration, and for the sake of our now-gasping Democracy.

Posted by MB Williams at 09:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

0800: The email in the extended area is the best summary of where things are. There is various topical discussion and the usual noise. Updates as they come in.

I'm pleased to see that a professional, not a vacuous political appointee, is now heading the FEMA effort, link.

1000. NOAA updated sat images.

1500. Still no tasking by FEMA to any of the P-15 volunteers. Several tech aid groups have formed, but none have a mission. In fact, FEMA hasn't provided a mission statement to P-15, so everyone is dancing in the dark, solving problems that may not exist, and not solving problems that may.

1700. The CDC posts Hurricane Disaster in the U.S.: Interim Health Recommendations for Relief Workers. P15 asks for volunteers to staff P15 itself. Still no FEMA tasking.

This is a good tech read: link.

Continue reading "Update on the Tech Draft" »

Posted by EBW at 08:20 AM | Permalink

We on the Left often (rightly) harangue the warbloggers for their willingness to allow others to fight the war they pushed, while they sit nice and cushy in front of their computer screens. And while often the best most of us can realistically do in a time of natural disaster far away, a la last year's tsunami, is to open our check books for professional disaster relief agencies, when the catastrophe strikes closer to home, is there a role we can physically play?

Obviously, I don't mean right now. Unless one has search and rescue training, one is certain to be a hindrance than a help in hurricane-damaged areas. But what happens when the job moves from rescue to rebuilding? Is there a role the Left, and the Lefty blogosphere in particular, can play in aiding our Southern brethren?

Looking back on last years major hurricanes, particularly Charley and Ivan, it's clear that clean up and reconstruction take a very long time, much longer than the media's attention span; remember, there's always a runaway bride to push stories of still homeless families off the front page. The fact that this Administration has been the brunt of much criticism for its de facto disempowerment of FEMA, and subsequent FEMA bungling of many operations, has led many top Administration cronies to push stories of lingering pain under the rug.

So, I've been thinking of a few things. First, is there a role for the "new media" in blogging Katrina, particularly maintaining pressure when the novelty wears off? Second, can we on the Left do a better job of proving our commitment to all people by working, without prejudice, in overtly "Red" areas? My other thoughts then turn to logistics, though this is where I feel our recently gleaned experiences (often with much pain) help mold my thoughts on the matter.

See, we're coming to all of you via satellite. We have a meter diameter satellite dish, mounted on a collapsible tripod, hooked to a router and finally, a Linksys wireless modem. With this, we have downstream internet pretty close to DSL speed, which is much faster than we'd get with the other options available to mobile customers (namely internet via cellphone at 56K.) Of course, we are limited at times by tree canopy, but that's namely due to our choice of campgrounds here in the northeast, and besides, I've gotten pretty good at finding a hole when necessary.

We currently have an individual account ($59/month) but with a business account ($99/month), we could set up a small ISP. I've been tossing the idea at Eric, that once tent and trailer cities have been set up, there will be a need for internet access, whether it's to order hard-to-come by items (I think about how hard it is to find basic food, let alone things like our son Sam, who has celiac disease, would need,) conduct research or send email to friends and family. Of course, we could also set up a sort of package receiving area (yes, UPS will even deliver to remote campsites - we know from experience).

If successful, we would hope that other such mobile ISPs could be set up, with the help and financing of interested Progressives. We could train people to set up and monitor the satellite connections, and people could even revolve in for a few weeks at a time. For bloggers interested in covering the situation first hand, as well as lending a helping hand, the mini-internet cafes might fit the bill.

In addition, running these relatively inexpensive mobile operations will provide hands on training for their potential use in upcoming campaigns. When I worked Kerry-Edwards last year, Verison was demanding a ridiculous amount (+$10K) for a deposit on phone service for a relatively small (12 person) operation. With VoIP (Voice over IP) technology, a satellite system could provide both phone and internet for less than $2000, and could be moved where needed.

My partner, who shall remain nameless (cough, Eric) sort of feels that this is pie-in-the-sky fantasizing. Maybe it is. But, if I (and others) can convince him, I think we can be in Lousiana or Mississippi in a month, with or without electricity (we don't need it, as we have enough battery power to run our satellite, though we could do with a larger generator for replenishment - or better yet, solar panels.)

Any thoughts? Bueller?

Posted by MB Williams at 08:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)