It's amazing the things that Doug has been interviewed for because of our experience with Katrina. The latest one he did was for a group of radio broadcasting majors who were doing a research study on Katrina and emergency radio broadcasting. Here's their blog for their study ... lots of neat interviews from many different perspectives. It's true that in the immediate weeks and months after K, we relied most heavily on one radio station for local information. Sure, we watched some of the national news, but we knew that that was put together by people who weren't feeling what we were ... the amazing sense of loss as well as the incredible sense of loyalty. This radio channel (you can read all the details on the blog) was the consolidation of many local radio personalities and stations. For them, it wasn't about competition ... it was about uniting a displaced community. A broadcasting duo representing two different stations were on the air with little to no agenda, but often just had callers telling of what they had seen/heard from within the city. It was the only way to find out what was going on in any particular neighborhood (from height of flooding, presence of looters to what hospitals were operational, restored power). Of course, throughout all of this, the broadcasters were experiencing their own losses (whether homes, family members, etc.) right in front of their widespread audience.
How does an interview with Doug fit in with that? His interview revolved around the use of the internet to network our church body's members with one another, which in turn allowed for others looking for someone to help to contact us. The whole thing was amazing. I had limited understanding of updating our church's website at the time and had only done it onsite at the church. With the help of our gracious host and church webmaster himself, our friend Jeremy was able to help us post a note on the front page leading to a blog we set up for that reason. Since Doug and I had started personal blogging just months prior, we guessed that it would be the easiest way for us to be able to update it remotely. It was all a guess and we didn't know if it would really work, but it did. After a church member sent a mass email to everyone in her contacts, we were able to get the word out that way as well as the link from the church website's homepage. If you look at that blog's earliest entries, you'll find many families checking in for the first time, explaining their whereabouts, and trying to find others. Anyway, here are Doug's comments ... in a video feed with looping still pictures.
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