While reading through many diaries and comments over the past couple of days, I noted that there were a significant number of stories about help or evacuation of Katrina victims being delayed or denied because of some bureaucratic snafu's or maybe something worse.
Right now on the Recommended List we have Terre's diary "Northern Command Unit READY - BUT WAITED on Bush Orders" and shock's "LA Homeland Security confirms ARC kept out!"
Today, some of the situations for victims in New Orleans seems to be getting a lot better, and I know we are all very, very glad to see that change. As the life saving issues are resolved, there will be more time for the media and our elected leaders to investigate "what went wrong."
I suggest that we aid that work by having a compilation prepared that we can direct them to.
More below.
First, I would like to thank Drew and Pb who have been creating a timeline of Katrina events in the
dKosopedia
Many of us here know how to get information directly in the hands of Congressional representatives and Senators, as well as members of the media. However we may not have the time to organize what we are reading here so it will get attention and may have missed an important comment or diary in the flood of information being shared on this blog.
Reporting a single incident has less impact than providing a compilation of a larger number of problems that probably resulted in people loosing their lives.
My Proposal:
1) Tagging: If you have a diary about or you are reading a diary about a Katrina event, please make certain it is tagged with a category comment like this:
CategoryKatrina
That is one way to help aggregate them.
2) Data Collection: If you have information or a diary about aid, rescues, etc. being delayed or not allowed, please list the basics of that information here with a link to your diary as a comment to this diary.
3) Keep General Comments OUT: Please add only information and sources here - let's keep the comments down. If you agree with this process, simply recommend the diary and rate the information provided. Keep it clean so that busy people will be more inclined to use it and will not have to wade through a hundred comments about what a bad or good idea it is or asking how much you should or should not provide.
Just think about it and provide what you believe would be most useful to a journalist or Senator looking into the problems.
4) Verified? At the beginning of your comment, please note whether or not the information you are providing is verified or not. If you have people who could verify, let us know if contact information is available (not asking anyone to display private info in a public format)
5) Try for some organization. This maybe the most important point. Use the subject lines of your comments to make it as clear as possible about which situation you are providing information about. Updates or additional diaries on the SAME situation should be posted as replies to the first comment on THAT situation. This is not a relational database, but with a little care, we should be able to organize the information anyway.
6) Getting rid of "off topic" comments: [unsure about this one - hate to penalize well intentioned folks who can't follow instructions <grinning here> - I know that herding progressive cats is almost impossible, while I also know that keeping the info clean and organized is key to getting the greatest exposure and attention from busy journalists and Congressional leaders and staff] Trusted users could consider troll rating irrelevant comments so they disappear. (please don't shoot me - just a thought)
7) Please recommend this diary: Again, if you think this is a worthwhile effort, I am giving you a poll to register your opinion and/or you can just reccomend the diary - Please don't add a comment saying you think it is a good idea.
Tell others about this diary.
8) If you have a better idea - consider letting this one run for 24 or 48 hours and then starting a new diary, pointing out the problems with this one and suggesting your own plan. That way we have time to discover all the flaws instead of jumping in with Plan II and maybe duplicating some errors in process.
Thanks for your time and consideration of this proposal.
[Update] CategoryFEMA added 9-05-05
See dKosopedia Categories for a list of all the Category Tags now available