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A Technology Report From A San Diego Fire Shelter
netbuzz writes "Retired journalist and mobility expert Jim Forbes is among the quarter-million San Diego-area residents driven out of their homes by the horrific wildfires. Forbes has taken the opportunity to 'fire blog' from his shelter and discuss via e-mail with Network World how his personal technology and the shelter's wireless networks are holding up under the strain. 'The shelter set up a dedicated computer room with an 802.11 a,b, and g network which worked like a charm. Lots of people brought notebooks when they left their home, so there was a whole lot of IM traffic in and out of the shelter. The local cell networks were subsumed by traffic early in the day so people were texting friends and loved ones a lot."
It might look funny from an external point of view, but when you stack hundreds of people in shelters for days, morale soon becomes a concern as big as logistic. Giving them a way to get independant information and communicate with the rest of the world and their families is a cheap but effective way of reducing the stress of the refugees.
T-Mobile already has plans to do it.
Yeap, you're just a giant asshole. Putting out every single wild fire isn't necessarily good policy, but neither is letting people's houses burn down.
The firefighters know about fire management, and that in places like Yosemite the forest gets too thick when you try to put out fires too frequently. The Southern California fires are different though....they are largely grass fires, with grass that has dried out during the long summer. In addition the warm Santa Anna winds heat things up and push the fires along. So letting the fires burn one year will have little effect on the fires of the next year.
We help those people out because we feel sorry for them. Basically, if you can look at someone's house that burned down, and expect them to just live in the street until they can find somewhere else to live, you have trouble empathizing with people and should get some help. Don't matter if it's their fault or not; I done enough stupid things in my life that I can forgive someone else for doing the same.
Qxe4