"What was really needed was a single, well-maintained database that everyone could agree to support. Unfortunately, things were destined to get worse, before they got better."
September 15, 2001 8:00 PM Subscribe
"What was really needed was a single, well-maintained database that everyone could agree to support. Unfortunately, things were destined to get worse, before they got better." A good piece on how and why the grass-roots rush to provide survivor details, though well-spirited, eventually led to confusion and false hopes. (There's a strange parallel with the problems of Napster and its file-sharing kindred.) Can we draw any lessons on how best to use the Web in situations like this?
1) It's not the first story. There have been others although I a have no idea where I've seen them
2) It's about.com... Try "traditional media" for net wunder-stories...
posted by fooljay at 9:15 PM on September 15, 2001
2) It's about.com... Try "traditional media" for net wunder-stories...
posted by fooljay at 9:15 PM on September 15, 2001
The article author's heart is in the right place, but the very concept is just wrong. Having a "survivor's registry" at all is guaranteed to cause far more anguish than help, above and beyond the logistical problems mentioned in the article. The main problems are:
1) The overwhelming majority of people located near this disaster have never heard of any of these lists, and probably never will. Even now, almost five days later, there are only 45,000 listings. There were probably over a million people located in, or close enough to, the WTC to make people worry about their welfare.
2) By having a survivor's registry (or, worse, several competing ones), thousands, if not millions, of non-computer-savvy people will be drawn to them in the belief that they will somehow magically list everyone that's safe. Then when they don't see their loved one's name there because said loved one has never heard of any of these sites, they freak out and presume he's dead or seriously injured for several hours until he can finally reach them by phone or something.
In any event, these registries aren't even really necessary. In all but the most heinous disasters, everyone that's safe will be able to contact their loved ones very quickly. Anyone who's still going to those online registries now to see if a loved one is listed as safe is a person who hasn't yet accepted the fact that said loved one didn't make it. Anyone who went there later than Tuesday night, really.
I can't see this sort of thing really working, at least not anywhere other than a very small town, until we reach the point that everyone's carrying government-issued smart cards that they could just swipe at a checkpoint after a disaster to report themselves safe, and in such an event the government would probably run the safe registry itself. And if we ever reach a point where we're all carrying cards for the government to track us with, dying in a disaster will probably be preferable anyway.
posted by aaron at 10:41 PM on September 15, 2001
1) The overwhelming majority of people located near this disaster have never heard of any of these lists, and probably never will. Even now, almost five days later, there are only 45,000 listings. There were probably over a million people located in, or close enough to, the WTC to make people worry about their welfare.
2) By having a survivor's registry (or, worse, several competing ones), thousands, if not millions, of non-computer-savvy people will be drawn to them in the belief that they will somehow magically list everyone that's safe. Then when they don't see their loved one's name there because said loved one has never heard of any of these sites, they freak out and presume he's dead or seriously injured for several hours until he can finally reach them by phone or something.
In any event, these registries aren't even really necessary. In all but the most heinous disasters, everyone that's safe will be able to contact their loved ones very quickly. Anyone who's still going to those online registries now to see if a loved one is listed as safe is a person who hasn't yet accepted the fact that said loved one didn't make it. Anyone who went there later than Tuesday night, really.
I can't see this sort of thing really working, at least not anywhere other than a very small town, until we reach the point that everyone's carrying government-issued smart cards that they could just swipe at a checkpoint after a disaster to report themselves safe, and in such an event the government would probably run the safe registry itself. And if we ever reach a point where we're all carrying cards for the government to track us with, dying in a disaster will probably be preferable anyway.
posted by aaron at 10:41 PM on September 15, 2001
Having a "survivor's registry" at all is guaranteed to cause far more anguish than help
I don't know that that's necessarily true, although I can see some of the problems mentioned in this article being real causes for concern.
The attack on the Pentagon could have created much more confusion, fear, and chaos if not for the fact that the folks who work there had a procedure for "checking in" in the event of an emergency such as this. Because of those procedures, it became a much easier task to account for people working in the building, and to identify the missing by name. Of course the scale of the carnage was nothing like that in New York, but even so, I've heard that 20,000 people work in the Pentagon, and so that's a lot of scared family members who were in a much better situation for finding out if their loved ones were okay due to the emergency procedures in place there.
I don't know what can be taken from this to be applied to civilian life; it's a much different thing to try to institute "official disaster procedures" for non-military private citizens. In the case of the WTC, it could have been some help if all the companies housed there had had a check-in procedure for emergencies, but then what do you do about visitors and tourists in the retail shops located there? I really don't know.
posted by Sapphireblue at 10:22 AM on September 16, 2001
I don't know that that's necessarily true, although I can see some of the problems mentioned in this article being real causes for concern.
The attack on the Pentagon could have created much more confusion, fear, and chaos if not for the fact that the folks who work there had a procedure for "checking in" in the event of an emergency such as this. Because of those procedures, it became a much easier task to account for people working in the building, and to identify the missing by name. Of course the scale of the carnage was nothing like that in New York, but even so, I've heard that 20,000 people work in the Pentagon, and so that's a lot of scared family members who were in a much better situation for finding out if their loved ones were okay due to the emergency procedures in place there.
I don't know what can be taken from this to be applied to civilian life; it's a much different thing to try to institute "official disaster procedures" for non-military private citizens. In the case of the WTC, it could have been some help if all the companies housed there had had a check-in procedure for emergencies, but then what do you do about visitors and tourists in the retail shops located there? I really don't know.
posted by Sapphireblue at 10:22 AM on September 16, 2001
« Older $200 million in gold and silver buried under WTC. | Interactive map of New York City Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Damn but we have become a nation of critics and complainers.
That said, where do we begin to create a crisis plan for the Interent for future disasters, natural or otherwise?
posted by dewelch at 8:28 PM on September 15, 2001