The Hummingbird, part 3 November 7th, 2006
And, a few more pictures of the hummingbird we fed after Hurricane Katrina…
The Hummingbird, part 2 November 6th, 2006
More pictures of the hummingbird we fed after Hurricane Katrina…
The Hummingbird October 30th, 2006
After Hurricane Katrina, we had a huge number of hummingbirds visit our house. Perhaps this was because we still had a feeder available.
We had one problem, though. We had been remodelling and our sun porch, which previously had clear plexiglass as “windows” did not have any windows at the time.
Unfortunately, the hummingbirds saw the relatively shady area with plants and decided to visit. When they wanted to leave, however, they tried to get out the skylight — and, of course, they couldn’t. We lost several before I was able to get some fiberglass screening and close in the sun porch temporarily.
This hummingbird almost made it…
Hurricane Hero Award March 15th, 2006
The Cajun Clickers Computer Club and I were honored on November 11, 2005 as “Hurricane Heroes” by the Excalibur Club in Baton Rouge.
During September, I started and lead the Katrina Pet Rescue Project of the Cajun Clickers Computer Club.
We were working as volunteers for the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry’s Office of Animal Health Services (also known as the “State Vet’s Office”).
From September 6th through September 22nd, I had 80 volunteers who spent an estimated total of 1,400 man-hours inputting phone logs and emails into a massive spreadsheet for the State. We were tracking reports of lost animals, animals to be rescued, offers to volunteer, offers to send goods and offers to foster animals.
We input over 7000 records into the spreadsheet, which was used by the Louisiana SPCA to coordinate the actual rescues..
Each morning, I picked up input data at least once from the State Vet’s Office. Each night, I consolidated the spreadsheets input by each of that day’s volunteers into the master spreadsheet and emailed it to the Louisiana SPCA’s coordinator, the Humane Society of the United States’ coordinator and the Louisiana State Vet’s office.
Read more about our Katrina Pet Rescue Project
"US Unprepared for Katrina" – Gee, this is news? February 15th, 2006
I am constantly amazed at the news media and television talking heads, let alone the politicians who are trying to shoot at anyone involved in the Hurricane Katrina situation — whether they were involved in preparations or response.
One of the headlines at Yahoo! News today reads “U.S. Unprepared for Katrina.” This article summarized a Republican attack on the U.S. preparations and response.
Wow, isn’t that news? It’s now February and someone has figured out that the U.S. wasn’t prepared and could have done better on responses?
Of course, they haven’t figured out that no one could be prepared for a disaster on the scale of Katrina. After a disaster of this magnitude, mistakes and inefficiencies in the response will occur.
ONLY IN THE MIND OF A POLITICIAN COULD EVERYTHING BE PERFECT IN PLANNING AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE — especially if they can potshot at the people who did the planning and response, and without themselves having to worry about funding the programs that would have been necessary for perfect planning and perfect response!
It wasn’t just the wind or the storm surge or whether the levees should have held up — it was where the storm hit and how hard.
Think about it from the total mirror-side, though. What if the U.S. was prepared for Katrina?
Just how do you expect that we would pay for such preparations? We’re not taking about minor flooding and a coastal town that got washed away.
We’re talking about the whole coastal region of eastern Louisiana, the Mississippi Gulf Coast and parts of Alabama — and six weeks of flooded houses and buildings in one of the most populated cities in the country.
The sheer scope of this hurricane damage is such that no one could be prepared to prevent or mitigate that much damage.
And, if we as a nation, tried to prepare for such significant damage for every type calamity that might hit, just how are we going to pay for it? With European-style 90% tax rates — would that be enough?
Just looking at hurricanes, we would have the whole of the Gulf coast and the East Coast — all the way up to Maine — to prepare.
Just how do you provide spare housing to take on a population the size of New Orleans? Where are you going to put it? How do you get the people there? How do you rebuild after six weeks of flooding? Where do you find enough building materials for the rebuilding? Where do you find the skilled craftsmen/craftswomen to rebuild?
Our friends in California, of course, would love to help pay for that – as long as we’re preparing for the same scale responses to earthquakes in California. Oh, yeah, they’ve got the mud-slides problem too, so let’s not forget that regular problem.
Tornadoes in the Mid-West, and other problems in other parts of the country. Some are severe and affect small areas — most of the time — just like hurricanes do. As New Orleans learned, just because it hasn’t happened before, doesn’t mean it won’t.
Meanwhile, I’m reserving my disgust for the politicians who want to take potshots at those who had to react to the hurricane’s impacts.
Sure, they can make a headline or get a sound-bite by bashing anyone and anything related to Katrina — it’s much easier than helping solve problems.
Cajun Clickers – Katrina Pet Rescue Project – Finished! September 23rd, 2005
Due to the Tropical Storm Warnings for Baton Rouge from Hurricane Rita, we have wrapped up our volunteer project a couple days early. Yesterday, Thursday 9/22, was the last day of the Cajun Clickers Katrina Pet Rescue Project.
Cajun Clickers Computer Club volunteers have been volunteering for the State of Louisiana's Office of Animal Health Services (part fo the Louisiana Department. of Agriculture. & Forestry), and through them, assisting the Louisiana SPCA (www.la-spca.org) and the Humane Society of the United States (www.hsus.org ).
Cajun Clickers volunteers inputted data from Tuesday September 6th through Thursday, September 22nd in the Clickers Computer Lab. We entered data into spreadsheets to log pets to be rescued, reports of lost pets, offers to volunteer, offers to foster and offers to donate goods. We added over 7,000 records to the tracking spreadsheet. We got two batches of data per day, input the data, consolidated the spreadsheets and sent updated spreadsheets to the State and the LA-SPCA and HSUS rescue coordinators each night.
Many thanks to the many Cajun Clickers Computer Club members who volunteered for this huge effort.
Cajun Clickers – Katrina Pet Rescue Project – Still Going! September 22nd, 2005
Volunteers from the Cajun Clickers Computer Club continue our volunteer Katrina Pet Rescue Project work for the State's Office of Animal Health Services.
We're inputting information from emails and phone call notes into a massive spreadsheet that the State, the Louisiana SPCA and the Humane Society of the US are using to coordinate the actual rescues. (we do not take phone calls about pets at Clickers).
We're working again today (Thursday) and, I expect, Friday & Saturday. We start at 12:00 noon and keep going until we finish.
The last couple days, we finished at our Clickers facilities before 4pm, which has been really nice — how long it takes depends on how many volunteers we get! I take the individual spreadsheets home and continue with the consolidation work from home — with a fresh cup of my home-roasted coffee.
How did we get started? If you haven't heard, Louisiana's Assistant State Veterinarian is a Clickers member and called us for help. WE RESPONDED!
Cajun Clickers – Katrina Pet Rescue Project – on TV! September 18th, 2005
WAFB Channel 9 gave us an opportunity to talk about our volunteers' efforts on our Cajun Clickers Katrina Pet Rescue Project this morning on their “Sunday 9 News This Morning” show. Cajun Clickers members are volunteers working for the State's Office of Animal Health Services and providing “pets to be rescued” data to the Louisiana SPCA and HSUS. Lori Main and I represented the Cajun Clickers Computer Club as we were interrviewed by Scott Oswalt on the live show.
That makes two recent news reports about our project. WAFB also interviewed me and filmed in our computer lab on Thursday as Cajun Clickers volunteers were working on our project.
Friday's short piece was combined with a news report about the shelters for rescued animals and was broadcast during Friday's 10pm news and in the “Local News” repeat shows that WAFB does on cable channel 9 on Friday night and Saturday. (Channel 9 is their broadcast channel, but their broadcast is found on Channel 7 on our cable system — channel 9 cable is a WAFB continually-running local news repeat).
The Cajun Clickers Computer Club's facilities include two large lecture rooms with instructor computers and projection systems; a computer lab with 15 student computers, instructor computer and a projection system for the instructor's coputer, a “community computer” area where members can use computers for personal use, and several offices and work areas.
See us in these news reports:
- Friday, 9/16/05 10pm news — Interview excerpt and film of Cajun Clickers at work on our Katrina Pet Rescue Project for the State's Office of Animal Health Services
dialup, 764KB broadband, 4.8MB - Sunday 9/18/05 7am Sunday 9 News This Morning — Interview of Terry Stockdale and Lori Main about the Cajun Clickers Computer Club's Katrina Pet Rescue Project for the State's Office of Animal Health Services (4 minutes)
dialup, 2.8MB broadband, 17.5MB
Many thanks to WAFB Channel 9 for the interviews and filming and for the opportunity to show the recorded videos via the Cajun Clickers Computer Club's web site and via my blog. Also, many thanks to the Cajun Clickers Digital Video Special Interest Group for recording, editing and preparing the files for the websites.
Cajun Clickers – Katrina Pet Rescue Project – Publicity Update September 17th, 2005
WAFB Channel 9 in Baton Rouge filmed the Cajun Clickers Computer Club's volunteers at work on our Katrina Pet Rescue Project on Thursday, September 14th. Reporter Avery Davidson interviewed me for that segment of the news.
We made Friday night's 10pm WAFB news, following a report on the animal shelters. My interview was trimmed to one answer to a question about shelter successes in reuniting pets with owners, which really isn't the phase in which we're involved, but was directly related to the previous story. We are on the front-end of the process inputting original communications to the state in to their tracking ystem. There were several video shots of our volunteers at work on our Katrina Pet Rescue Project.
Lori Main and I will be on WAFB's Sunday morning show at 7am and get a chance to talk about what the Cajun Clickers are doing for the pet rescue / animal rescue efforts and how they are helping.
We appreciate WAFB Channel 9's interest in what we're doing and their news broadcasts of volunteer responses in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
We expect to have video links to both Cajun Clickers television segments available here and at the Cajun Clickers Computer Club's website.
Cajun Clickers – Katrina Pet Rescue Project – more publicity! September 16th, 2005
More news for today about the Cajun Clickers Katrina Pet Rescue Project:
We will be on WAFB's Sunday Morning show this Sunday, September 18th!
The WAFB “Sunday 9 News This Morning” is on Channel 9 (Channel 7 on cable) from 7am to 8am.
We're looking forward to a chance to talk about the club and talk about what our volunteers have been doing to support the efforts of the State's Office of Animal Health Services, the Louisiana SPCA and the HSUS to rescue and care for rescued animals.
Read all my entries about the
Cajun Clickers Computer Club's Katrina Pet Rescue Project.