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How Tech Companies Responded To Hurricane Florence (qz.com)
112-mph winds from Hurricane Florence battered the Carolinas on Saturday, resulting in at least 13 deaths and leaving more than 796,000 households with no electricity, according to CNN, with over 20,000 people evacuating to emergency shelters.
One Myrtle Beach resident spotted an alligator walking through their neighborhood, and the New York Post warns the hurricane "could displace venomous snakes from South Carolina's wetlands," uprooting "some 38 species of snakes -- including dangerous cottonmouths and copperhead vipers."
Cellphone carriers are offering free calling, texting, and data services to affected customers in the Carolinas, and Quartz reports that other tech companies are also trying to help: People fleeing Florence can find hundreds of places on Airbnb to stay for free; the company will screen applicants and cover homeowners for any damage up to $1 million. Harmany is an app created specifically to connect people during natural disasters. It's set up so that people who have a place can list it, adding it to a map where those needing shelter can find them. Gas Buddy, which lets users search for gas prices and availability by zip code, has set up a special "Florence Live Updates" page and section on its app so users can identify which gas stations are out of fuel, diesel, or power....
The main federal disaster agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has an app that is supposed to provide up-to-the minute information about the storm, shelters, and evacuation routes. It is crashing constantly, according to Android users. (Quartz's didn't have the same problems, but hitting the "get directions" button to one North Carolina shelter inexplicably opened up Uber.) FEMA also recommends the Red Cross's Hurricane app, which shows location specific weather alerts, has a flashlight and an alarm, and allows users to connect with people in their contacts, but doesn't have information on shelters.
And the data backup company Datto is even deploying equipment for free to bring back critical infrastructure. "With this storm, it looks like flooding will be as much of a danger as wind. It doesn't take a lot of water to knock out infrastructure like cable and internet. Things that can take weeks to build it back..."
One Myrtle Beach resident spotted an alligator walking through their neighborhood, and the New York Post warns the hurricane "could displace venomous snakes from South Carolina's wetlands," uprooting "some 38 species of snakes -- including dangerous cottonmouths and copperhead vipers."
Cellphone carriers are offering free calling, texting, and data services to affected customers in the Carolinas, and Quartz reports that other tech companies are also trying to help: People fleeing Florence can find hundreds of places on Airbnb to stay for free; the company will screen applicants and cover homeowners for any damage up to $1 million. Harmany is an app created specifically to connect people during natural disasters. It's set up so that people who have a place can list it, adding it to a map where those needing shelter can find them. Gas Buddy, which lets users search for gas prices and availability by zip code, has set up a special "Florence Live Updates" page and section on its app so users can identify which gas stations are out of fuel, diesel, or power....
The main federal disaster agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), has an app that is supposed to provide up-to-the minute information about the storm, shelters, and evacuation routes. It is crashing constantly, according to Android users. (Quartz's didn't have the same problems, but hitting the "get directions" button to one North Carolina shelter inexplicably opened up Uber.) FEMA also recommends the Red Cross's Hurricane app, which shows location specific weather alerts, has a flashlight and an alarm, and allows users to connect with people in their contacts, but doesn't have information on shelters.
And the data backup company Datto is even deploying equipment for free to bring back critical infrastructure. "With this storm, it looks like flooding will be as much of a danger as wind. It doesn't take a lot of water to knock out infrastructure like cable and internet. Things that can take weeks to build it back..."
https://corporate.comcast.com/stories/comcast-opens-wifi-hotspots-to-aid-residents-and-emergency-personnel-ahead-of-hurricane-florence
>"Tech companies" are not responding to the hurricane in any way that matters. [...] How many of them are donating supplies? [...] How many are putting up people in housing?"
This series of articles is about technology, not about supplies.
Did you not read the summary? AirBnb is covering the entire cost of lodging people. That is pretty damn significant right there. Not listed: Google is matching donations to the Red Cross up to $1 million. Amazon set up a way to donate easily through Alexa. Facebook activated safety and crisis response pages and in-app donation collection.
Where I live, we don't have hurricanes. But you CANNOT open a gas station without installing a generator capable of powering the whole business, including lights, pumps and cash registers. The generator is expected to have a separate tank and to run on something that the gas station sells (usually diesel). The same AFAIK is in the whole EU and the whole post-Soviet world. Isn't it the same in US ?
I'm a happy man.
How long does it take to build new power masts and string new power cables from mast to mast? Will they be done before the next hurricane comes through and tears it all back down again?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
What hurricane are you talking about??
Lights flicker back on. 3 minutes later..........sigh.....damn it now I need to log back on.....5 minutes after he gets logged back in that they go back out again for good.
nerd curls up into the fetal position. Rescuers find him 45 minutes later after the neighbors call them due to the sounds of a little girl sobbing/wailing coming from the house.
He was Johnny on the spot for that one too.....some odd reason stuff sent to PR never actually made it past the truck driver union that decided the hurricane after part was a perfect time to go on strike for more pay. That and the various PR leadership were MIA during most of the event, other than the occasional sound bite, they weren't doing their job and actually running the response.
Home ruined, low on food and drinkable water, Sewers backing up Gators and Venomous snakes lurking about but hey at least we have the internet. People can survive a few hours after snake Envenomation (depending on the snake species) People can survive a few days without food People can survive a few days without Shelter. People have survived Thousands of years without the internet. if Tech companies want to help Truck in things people actually need, Slap your logo on it "facebook Brown bag of food" or "apple iWater" This is as silly as the internet balloons bringing the web to areas where clean drinking water is sparse.
...they moved their UPS and Generators from the cellar to the roof after Sandy.
So communication isn't necessary anymore in emergency situations?
Ezekiel 23:20
Has responded by offering 10 day prime shipping in VA with no explanation at all - on in-stock prime items.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Not really smart to put your utilities hanging on poles when where you live has lots of trees, hurricanes, and the occasional freezing rain/sleet storm in the winter. Tends to bring said utilities down - just as easily as flooding. And flooding tends to be a LOT less regular of an occurrence.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Also they are donating and being generous unlike the oil and oddly enough water *cough*nestle*cough* companies that the politicians bow down to, who jack up the prices during a crisis to take advantage of the people that need help the most.
Fake News!! Fake News!! It's easy to keep believin' the lie when anything you don't like is fake news.
Nope.
Puerto Rico is an insular area—a United States territory that is neither a part of one of the fifty states nor a part of the District of Columbia, the nation's federal district. Insular areas, including Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam, are not allowed to choose electors in U.S. presidential elections or elect voting members of the U.S. Congress. This grows out of Articles One and Two of the United States Constitution, which state that electors are to be chosen by "the People of the several States." In 1961, the 23rd amendment extended the right to choose electors to the District of Columbia; the insular areas, however, were not addressed in that Amendment.
I've read reports that they don't stand behind their promise to make owners whole if a guest trashes the place. What would really make this an attractive offer would be if instead of offering more money, they actually paid what they agreed to.
But to be fair, I'll ask: has anybody had serious damage done by an Airbnb guest which the company actually did repair?
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
Also most folks in Puerto Rico don't pay taxes or at least not income taxes. So without being voters and without paying taxes, there is less political incentive to provide services.
Sorry I live down here and have a front row seat for the political douche baggery of the local politics. I call them as I see them. PR was a rotten tree that just needed a strong wind to knock it over. That was going on long before Trump even ran.
Datto makes some pretty nice stuff if you can get your customers to pay for it - hybrid onsite-offsite backup, with the ability to spin up a VM "in the cloud" with a VPN connection back to the in-office backup device so it looks like that server is actually still up and running in the office even if it's a bit slow.
I like that they're helping out in situations like this, though for most of what they can do you probably needed it up and running a week or two before the hurricane.
fencepost
just a little off
That's still useful because AirBnb has legal guidelines in place to protect the homeowner when they decide to rent out their home. Many states have extremely strict tenant-protection laws which makes it take about a year to evict a squatting tenant. People who've invited a friend down on their luck to stay in an extra bedroom for "a short while" have run afoul of this, resulting in the friend refusing to move out and the homeowner having to go through the lengthy and expensive eviction process to remove them.
For this reason, unless it was a relative or one of my neighbors I know well, I doubt I'd invite anyone to stay at my home even in the event of a natural disaster. Unless it was under the legal protection of a company like AirBnb which provides legal and property insurance.
It's bitztream the autism-hating, custom EpiPen-hating, Musk-hating, Qualcomm-hating, Firefox tabs-hating, Slashdot editors-hating Slashdot troll!
Amusing ... actually not ... depressing would coin it more.
A self proclaimed first world nation is depending on donations to get/keep its citizens out of harm.
When do you guys wake up and realize that your life situation simply sucks and is not on first world standards?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How's life in the hypocrite lane?