Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
A year ago today, in the wake of Katrina, I posted the following item: PIOs - Add Bloggers to Your Media Distribution List for Disasters & Emergencies
The same thing applies today. Why anybody would not want to use any and every available source to distribute their information in time of a crisis is a mystery to me.
I am currently hanging out in the T.F. Green Airport in Providence, Rhode Island. I am scheduled to stop over shortly in Washington D.C. before heading on down to Orlando, the big question is will the flight be delayed/cancelled due to weather?
Update: No drama or excitement, just a few cool clouds on the way down to Orlando. In the end Alberto headed more North than East.
Around 4 p.m. this evening the sun was out, the winds were calm and it was cool. Around 60 degrees cool. Wilma was a non-event for the Polk County area. Some in the Orlando area lost power and a semi-truck was blown off an I-4 birdge, but the majority of the damage was to the south from wind and flooding.
Here's a tour of the blogs:
That should be the last of the hurricane posts (we hope) for the year. Back to work.
So far in Winter Haven, FL we've just had heavy rains and moderate winds. There is the occasional gust, but nothing major. The weather service says winds will most likely be 30-40 mph in our region. No power outages yet (knock-on-wood-desk).
When a heavy gust comes through I am waiting to hear shingles rolling along the roof. A sound we grew accustomed to during Charlie and Frances last year. Looking out the windows there are small branches down around the neighborhood and quite a few leaves in the driveway/yard.
The storm has moved quickly across the state and things should be back to normal by late evening (we hope).
I continue to update my list of Hurricane Wilma Blogs.
A round-up of links from this morning's landfall.
- The only update this morning from the Naples Daily News (at 8:11 a.m.) covers the landfall.
- Bill Ward begins to wonder why he's staying in a hotel with no power in Bonita Springs.
- Florida Cracker had breakfast with Wilma.
- Brendan Loy has his standard comprehensive storm coverage.
- CNN's Wilma photo gallery (mostly Mexico and storm prep now)
My friend Barry Friedman over at the Lakeland Ledger started a Wilma Newslog earlier this morning. Lakeland, Winter Haven and the rest of Polk County seem to be riding out the storm without too much damage.
Meanwhile over at the News Chief there is nothing. Unless you count that one small link under 'Community News'.
Andy Kent reports that there are 5020 people at the Germain Arena (Google Map) a little bit north of Naples, FL.
The latest head count just exceeded the 5,000-mark (5,020), but you wouldn't know it based on the sounds -- or lack thereof. Most of the people are either asleep or carrying on quiet conversations, and you could almost hear a pin drop.Outside, the rain is coming down a little harder, the winds are whipping up just a bit and the humidity is suffocating. Yet a few brave souls still felt compelled to light up a smoke in an act of defiance aimed at Wilma....
...As I am signing off for the night, with the clock reading 2:50 a.m. and Wilma just about three hours away from making landfall, I can hear the rain pounding the outside of the building, which was built to withstand a Category 4 hurricane.
Now all we can do is sit and wait -- for what we still don't know. But this sure doesn't look like a place supposedly planning to host a hockey game five days from now.
Our 4-year-old son has a bit of a stomach ache and the associated 'symptoms'. You add that with Hurricane Wilma and it becomes a long night. Hence the post at almost 4 a.m.
The Naples and Bonita Daily News staff moved from their offices to Florida Gulf Coast University today in advance of Hurricane Wilma. Writing in his blog Levi Chronister details the move:
Starting at 4 p.m. we loaded four SUVs (two rented, two owned by co-workers) and two cars with all of our food, water and computer gear to head to the arena. My boss bought a final installment of food, water and other supplies so, along with all our work gear and the supplies we'd already bought, we pretty much filled up the SUV. And our mini-fridge took up the entire hatchback part of one of the cars; the fridge was necessary because the one here has a weird funk to it.......Fortunately, we seem to be set for covering the hurricane for the foreseeable future as our Internet connection here is incredibly fast. Barring a power outage (*knock on wood*), we should be able to get updates to our readers even quicker than normal. We're here for the long haul, and we're looking forward to covering this hurricane for you.
Levi writes that the paper might be sending their print edition over to the Treasure Coast for printing:
We also helped move in some of the print staff's equipment, as it appears they'll be sending their pages to our Treasure Coast paper for printing. It makes the room slightly more crowded, but it will be nice to have some other people around as I have a feeling that a more communal setting will be nice during something like this.
A few interesting items:
- Bill Ward over at TBO.com says it's hard to look cool in a poncho:
Good thing it stopped raining because when you’ve got a poncho on, you never, ever, ever look cool. Have you ever seen James Bond wear a poncho in any of his movies? Heck, no. The only guy that can look cool in a poncho is Clint Eastwood, in one of his spaghetti Westerns—and even then he has to waste a bad guy while smoking a stogie. And his poncho was dirty burlap with a gun under it, not this cheap plastic kind.
- Jen's dog is freaking out.
- Disney is closed on Monday.
- Universal and Islands of Adventure closed on Monday.
A tornado warning was just issued for our area, Winter Haven, FL, until 9 p.m. Remember a warning means that a tornado has been sighted. A watch just means that conditions are favorable.
The first major rain band is coming by as well. Say goodbye to DirecTV.
The Naples Daily News has set up two new blogs:
I e-mailed Levi to ask if they were going to create RSS feeds for the blogs.
Update: I figured out the RSS feeds.
Here is another round-up of Florida-based Hurricane Wilma blogs:
Bloggers:
Media:
Other media outlets that don't have blogs, but are posting updates:
During the World Series coverage on Tampa's Fox 13 last night the local Jeep dealers ran a regional commerical. The commercial talked about a contest where the grand prize was a trip to Cancun, Mexico.
Considering that Cancun might have received 65 inches of rain and withstood 20+ hours of hurricane winds, that does not sound like such a 'grand' prize.
The Marco River web cam in Naples, FL has a good feed. Currently it looks sunny and a bit breezy down there. The web cam is good enough that you can see the current on the river.
You can check out the rest of the Naples area web cams here.
Around 11:30 a.m. this morning in Winter Haven and there is absolutely no wind. It is eerily calm. There are some dark clouds to the east/southeast, but nothing else.
Looking over some of the blogs and news web sites, here are a few interesting items:
- This guy is going to ride out Wilma in his sail boat
- Naples News - Hurricane Wilma photo gallery
- Naples area web cams
- Two guys drove from North Carolina to Naples, FL to sell generators, opportunists or saviors?
Just a usual Saturday in Central Florida. The latest track for Hurricane Wilma shows it going over Lake Okeechobee as it crosses the state. Earlier tracks had the storm a bit south of the lake. It will be intesting to see what the 11pm update will look like.
Earlier in the evening we went to Publix to stock up on water and other 'hurricane food'. We're supposed to get some wind and rain tomorrow in advance of the storm. Depending on the revised tracks we'll do a few other prep items tomorrow.
I am scheduled to go to Gainesville and Lake City on Monday, but all those engagements might be canceled. Travelling up I-75 probably won't be too fun on Monday.
The Naples News has switched to a Storm Edition in advance of Hurricane Wilma. The newspaper staff explain the switch:
For the next few days, the Naples Daily News and Bonita Daily News will be publishing their online content only on BonitaNews.com in order to have one source for all Hurricane Wilma information. BonitaNews.com is more capable of providing our readers quick, accurate and detailed information about the approaching storm and its effects on Collier and south Lee counties.
The new site is being run by some type of blog software a web framework by the name of Django and features a RSS feed of headlines. The Daily News is also producing a podcast (RSS) of hurricane coverage.
The finishing touch? They have a Wilma favicon: 
I've updated my list of local media Hurricane Wilma blogs.
Yawn. At first we figured we'd be slammed on Saturday/Sunday, now the latest track shows Hurricane Wilma off the coast of Florida early Monday morning.
I'll be posting as needed under the hurricanes section.
Wendy Kurtz posts that the 2005 PRSA International Conference which was to be held in Miami this weekend (Oct 22-25) has been canceled.
The PRSA site says:
The Fontainebleau Resort's current refund policy allows Conference registrants to cancel their hotel reservation WITH NO PENALTIES. The number to call is 305-538-2000.In addition to posting the latest information on our Web site (www.prsa.org), we have a Conference Hotline for updated information. That number is 1-888-277-3926.
I did a BlogPulse trend graph for 'wilma' over the past six months. Quite a spike at the end there.
The Great Floridian Iron-Distance Triathlon is scheduled to be held in Clermont, FL this weekend. Approximately 1000+ athletes will be coming to the area to race in the full and half distance events. A huge hurricane sitting off the coast tends to cause problems with an event of this nature. There are the obvious athlete safety issues involved, but large triathlons rely upon a number of local government agencies, specifically local law enforcement, and their first priority is to the community and not the race. If the Lake County Sheriff's office needs to use deputies for hurricane related efforts there will be no race.
The Sommer Sports web site forum is filled with posts from athletes discussing issues such as: shortening the race and athlete's responsibilities. In many cases these athletes have been training for one-two years in preperation for this event. They come from as far away as California, Hawaii, Maine and Wisconson to compete. In most cases, out-of-state athletes will want to arrive no-later than today for Saturday's race. The 'should I stay, or should I go' question needs to be made now.
Sommer Sports says they are meeting with local officials at 11 a.m. on Thursday and will post a course of action shortly after that meeting.
Sommer Sports founder Fred Sommer wondered if this was all a bad dream on early Wednesday morning.
Updated List: Most recent list of Hurricane Wilma Blogs
Doing a quick look around the local media outlets here are a few blogs:
Other media outlets that don't have blogs, but are posting updates:
One of the funnier images I have seen today. Hopefully the person that created the image will continue to update it as 'Wilma' moves.
The Orlando Sentinel have fired up their Hurricane Blog. Six posts in the past hour. They're off to a good start.
I am watching the Orlando Sentinel feed and NOAA's Hurricane Wilma feed.
Here is a photoset of damage from Hurricane Charley last year.
This was my sister-in-law's rental car. She was in town for my son's birthday party which was canceled last year because of the hurricane. What was funny is that she called the tree people first thing Saturday morning and they were there within an hour. The man told her that they had received over a hundred calls in the next hour, but she was the first.
Might need to cancel the weekend plans. Hurricane Wilma is heading right this way. Looking at the predicted path below, my yellow X might not be the best location to hang out in. The question is do we head for Atlanta tomorrow?
In last year's storms we suffered some pretty good roof damage from Charley with a slight follow-up from Frances.
Kaye Trammell has written an op-ed, Slogging, and Blogging, Through Katrina for the Washington Post today.
These blogs no longer belong to the blogger but to the community, as a centralized mechanism for communication and comfort in the face of natural disaster. They amend the coverage in several ways.
Kaye ends the piece with this simple line:
Blogging will not change the world in crisis, but it will make it more human.
I was honored that Kaye mentioned me along with Rex Hammock when calling for better cooperation between cities and governments with bloggers. Kaye was referencing this post I wrote earlier this week.
Rex Hammock talks about the need for hyper-local blogging in emergency situations.
In times of local crisis, the importance of having an active blogging community becomes very apparent. There are so many people outside an area who are desperately seeking information -- any information -- from the ground, so even if power and web-access is out in a city, the information being shared is much needed.
My wife was the public information officer (PIO) for our local county for a number of years. During hurricanes or other emergency situations (remember Y2K) she would spend countless hours at the emergency operations center doing media updates.
Like Rex, I feel it's important for PIOs to be connected with their local blogging community. When a PIO sends out an update to the media they should include local bloggers. The best case scenario would be for the county/local agency to have a blog/rss feed of such content.
I was asked by one power company spokesperson, "if you don't have power how can you blog or read a blog?" Easy. During Charley last year I:
- used my Blackberry to browse the internet and post (like Kaye is). One of the benefits of my Blackberry last year was that it's GSM based rather than TDMA or CDMA. Nobody else in the area could get calls out, but I always could.
- Even with no power I was able to login via dial-up on my laptop and browse the web as long as my battery lasted. Worse case scenario I could start the car up and charge the battery via the cigarette adapter.
There are other issues as well. My neighbors knew I was getting updates online so I became the local news source. Getting a message to me helped inform 20-30 people. The other factor is relatives and friends not in the disaster area. I might not be able to view a power company web site but I can call somebody who can.
Now the question to all the local PIOs....can you list the prominent bloggers in your area?
Update 9.3.05 Kaye Trammell referenced this post in her Washington Post op-ed today.
Kaye Trammell has created a Hurricane Update Blog from her location at LSU, 65 miles west of New Orleans.
Update 08.30.05 I am getting quite a bit of inbound search traffic looking for Katrina Blogs. Here are a few resources:
Terry Teachout's list of hurricane blogs
NOLA.com Everything New Orleans
Update 8.31.05 This post is still pretty high in the search rankings so to better serve all the people coming here I'll continue to post items. I 'borrowed' this list from DailyKos. It's all the various relief agencies and how you can donate.
The American Red Cross
Donation Link: Click here and select 'Donate Now'.
Relief focus: The Red Cross provides a full spectrum of services to disaster victims. From assistance with shelter, medical care, food, clean water and cleanup efforts, the Red Cross is an organization poised to assist in circumstances such as this.
Feed The Children
Donation Link: Click here and follow the donation link.
Relief focus: Feed the Children has long been competent at mobilizing and distributing supplies to disaster victims and victims of famine and disease. They are currently mobilizing a massive relief effort by gathering needed supplies and getting them to hurricane devastated areas.
The Salvation Army
Donation Link: Click here and follow the donate on line link.
Relief focus: The Salvation Army is prepared to provide 400,000 hot meals a day to displaced disaster victims and emergency personnel working to aid those devastated by Hurricane Katrina. They also provide a means for individuals to physically volunteer their time and assistance in the relief efforts.
United Jewish Communities
Donation Link: Click here and choose upper-right Katrina relief links.
Relief focus: Community organized and administered humanitarian relief for disaster victims.
Catholic Charities USA
Donation Link: Click here and follow instructions to donate online, by mail, or by phone.
Relief focus: Community based relief efforts focused on the long-terms needs of disaster victims and affected communities.
United Methodist Committee on Relief
Donation Link: Click here and follow the 'Donate Now' link.
Relief focus: Although they provide general community-based disaster relief, they are also focusing on the creation and distribution of "flood buckets", a more hands-on relief item for those who prefer to donate with a personal touch.
Noah's Wish
Donation Link: Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.
Relief focus: Noah's Wish is a not-for-profit, animal welfare organization, with a straightforward mission. We exist to keep animals alive during disasters. That's it.
Humane Society of the United States
Donation Link: Click here.
Relief focus: Dispatching Disaster Animal Response Teams (DARTs) to rescue animals and assist their caregivers.ASPCA
Donation Link: Click here and choose the type of giving you prefer.
Relief focus: Although they do not yet have anything specific to Katrina up on their site, the ASPCA sends emergency relief to animal shelters when natural disasters occur.
North Shore Animal League America
Donation link: Click here and select 'Donate'.
Relief focus: NSAL America has an emergency response team that is ready to respond in the event of an emergency. In 2004, we responded to the devastating hurricanes in the south.
United Way
Donation Link: Click here and follow Katrina donation links.
Relief focus: United Way is leading response and recovery efforts by working hard to identify the most serious needs of devastated communities and is committed to helping not only with front-line disaster relief but with long-term recovery—those needs that are often not addressed in the days, weeks and months following a disaster.
America's Second Harvest
Donation link: Click here.
Relief focus: They expect at least ten food banks and hundreds of related agencies will be hit by hurricane 'Katrina'. Their Network is in great need of funds to transport food to victims and secure additional warehouse space to assist our Member food banks in resuming and maintaining operations.
Direct Relief International
Donation link: Click here and select 'Support Us'.
Relief focus: Because of the organization’s extensive medical inventories, Direct Relief serves as a private back-up support to official emergency response efforts in the United States.
Habitat for Humanity
Donation link: Click here and follow the Katrina link.
Relief focus: Helping disaster victims rebuild piece by piece and house by house.
The Ledger recently ran this graphic showing the paths of the two recent hurricances, Charley and Frances, and how they cross approx. 10 miles from my house.
Update (12:36PM): The Ledger has a reporter working on a story about the exact location of the X.
The blue dot on the map represents the intersection of the two storms. The red dot almost on top of the 'Winter Haven' title is my house.
Seeing this intersection, which the National Weather Service could probably pinpoint down to a few meters, I thought of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Perhaps people from around Florida and the country will be drawn to this spot.
Hurricane Charley came through and took part of our roof and our power. Estimates for power to be returned are anywhere from this afternoon to Tuesday of this week.
e-mail: josh@hyku.com
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