Disaster aid update
UPDATE: Be sure to see Instapundit's Katrina Aid Update post.
I had a doctor appointment today. When I got in to see him, he apologized for the delay, and said that it had to do with the fact that his family lives in New Orleans.
Needless to say, that had him kind of busy and preoccupied. No problem, I said.
Then, on the way home, I heard Ralph Bristol make a suggestion that I think is a brilliant idea, one that, as far as I know, hasn't been widely supported in the blogosphere (or anywhere else that I know of).
He has a spare room in his home, like a lot of folks do, and he would be willing to let storm victims stay there temporarily while they get their own homes repaired or whatever they need to do to get their lives back together.
Someone out there should coordinate all the people who have spare room in their homes and are willing to let disaster victims stay with them for a little while. There are lots of people who have such room, and they aren't all necessarily well-to-do--potentially, I may have such a room within a few months, and maybe even more in the near future, and I would be willing to participate, too. But I have no idea who to tell about this. I don't know how to coordinate an effort like this, but if I had to I guess I could try. But I'm hardly the ideal person.
Now, while this blog has little influence in the blogosphere, I know that one or two of the Big Guys check it out on occasion, and this sort of idea is going to need the support of several such Big Guys if it's going to go anywhere. I haven't actually had the chance to do any reading yet today, so it's possible that someone else out there is promoting the same idea. If so, please let me know who they are, or ask them to contact me, or somehow get us together.
I'm going to write Glenn Reynolds about this idea, specifically because he's requested information on the subject of Katrina aid, but my email will be only one of thousands, and he doesn't particularly know me or anything.
This is important, I think. A spare room, even if it has no furniture like beds or anything, and the people have to camp out on the floor with bedrolls, is a durn sight better than places where thousands huddle together in the heat and humidity and dampness. And there are potentially thousand of such spare rooms in homes all over the country.
Let's do something about this, folks. We may not be ready in time to help Katrina victims, but we could easily be ready for the next storm or earthquake or volcano or meteorite strike or whatever happens next in the lower 48.
UPDATE: It turns out that Bill Hennessy has put up a website devoted to this very thing: registering people who are offering their homes for Katrina victims. Over 75 people have already registered! I don't yet know if this is intended as a permanent thing for use in future disasters (I've emailed Bill to ask this. And thanks to Doug of Below the Beltway for pointing me to Michelle Malkin for the link.)
And NBC News mentioned an effort called "Host A Family," but for the life of me I can't find a link to it yet.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ogre points to a Yahoo group set up for this purpose, Katrina Open Rooms. And he's discussing the question of whether we should rebuild New Orleans at all, as is The Steel Deal. There certainly are good arguments for not rebuilding, but my gosh--4.5 million people, and their hometown may just have disappeared, and this isn't even considering the value of New Orleans as a historic and unique city. In contrast, Doug of Below the Beltway argues in favor of rebuilding.
To reiterate, I still think that we--someone, anyone--should make this spare-room registry thing a permanent effort, so we're not left scrambling to do something next time a disaster strikes.
Technorati tags: flood aid, hurricane Katrina
Posted by: Ogre | Wednesday, 31 August 2005 at 07:16 PM
Posted by: writing up dissertation | Thursday, 18 June 2009 at 01:58 AM