Chicago Wireless Activists Aid Louisiana Newstip Date: 09-08-2005
The Wireless Community Network project of the Center for Neighborhood Technology is helping to bring emergency telecommunications technology to rural Gulf Coast communities ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Two WCN technicians, Paul Smith and Rogers Wilson III, are working with dozens of community wireless volunteers from around the country in Rayport in northern Louisiana, where farmer Mac Dearman operates a rural internet provider service with a 100-foot antenna.
Using software developed by WCN to piggy-back wireless internet connections, building antennas and providing laptops, internet phones, and other equipment, they've established internet and internet-based telephone access in local shelters.
Throughout rural communities in northern Louisiana and Mississippi, "towns of 100 people are sheltering 200 evacuees in the local Baptist church," Smith and Wilson report in postings on the WCN website. Small, ad-hoc shelters are popping up throughout the region, "too many to keep track of," increasing the need for communication, said Nicole Friedman of WCN.
Internet and phone connections allow displaced families to contact relatives and register for federal assistance and survivor databases. Communication is also crucial for relief workers.
Smith and Wilson are also mapping out plans with the resource manager of Gulfport, Mississippi, where over 3,000 evacuees are cut off from communication in several Red Cross shelters as well as numerous churches and farms, and discussions are under way with other communities.
The wireless technology "could be a short-term solution, or it could be a long-term solution as needed," Friedman said, depending on how long it takes to restore regular phone service. The technology is highly flexible and the technicians are skilled at improvisation, she said.
Hurricane Katrina destroyed telecommunications infrastructure throughout the region, with the cost of replacement estimated in the billions of dollars. Large telecom companies are focused on reestablishing communications for emergency services.
WCN has established pilot projects in Chicago's Pilsen and Lawndale neighborhoods and in suburban Elgin and downstate West Frankfort, using wireless technolocy to deliver low-cost, high-speed broadband access to homes, small businesses, and community institutions in underserved areas.