September 06, 2004

I still won’t know if there is any damage to NodedSouth but the Publix down the road is open and receiving shipments of ice. It is really weird being 1400 miles away from an natural disaster and yet still be in the middle of it. Both of the Nodette homes survived without damage other than a downed fence and some missing screening. Hurricanes sure point out the weak points in our infrastructure.

As Tom Martrullo points out, the call to evacuate on the scale of this last weekend needed to actually have a plan. Everyone was being told to evacuate but no one was offering suggestions on where to go.

There is a gargantuan effort to get power restored. There are something like 12,000 crews from Florida and other states rewiring the state. I’d like to think that some time in the near future our power will be more decentralized. I keep thinking that sometime soon the garbage we now dump into heaping piles (some of the highest elevations in Florida are land fills) could be used to power personal generation systems. Something like Doc Brown had in Back To The Future 2.

We need to look at expanding wireless capabilities too. Right now in the area around NodedSouth the authorities are asking people not to use their cell phones as the governmental radio systems are over loaded and the government needs to use the phone.

The internet provides methods of communication that were not previously available. Florida Today has blogs with comments as well as community and supply forums, and seems to be doing a good job of trying to keep everyone informed. This goes way beyond what you can do with a newspaper.

Richard Contreras, a Council Member for Melbourne Florida, has been using the forums to keep an official presence.

I'm the City of Melbourne Council Member for Dist. 1 and have been in communication with the Melbourne Emergency Operations Center. The following info is provided: - Power is out for the majority of the city...lots of trees & power polls down. - Water service has been turned-off to beachside communities serviced by the city (in the event there is a main break…

There must be numerous people in the area that will remember Mr. Contreras’ name come the next election.

There is a level of communication there that wasn’t available a few short years ago. It wasn’t long ago that you only got your news once a day but we need to make sure that it is easier still to keep informed.