SysAdmin's for Hurricane Katrina Relief
02 Sep '05 - 02:46 by benrThis has been a tough week and is going to be an even tougher weekend. Labor day weekend is a busy time; school is starting up for many, its the time for big end-of-summer events and gatherings (such as the annual Pleasanton Highland Games), travel and vacations, one of the biggest Formula 1 races of the year (Monza, the Grand Prix of Italy), and more. Amoungst all these plans are the day-to-day issues of our communities and projects, including some tense ones such as the current situation with Blastwave, which you'll note I have yet to mentioned this week. We're all busy and have lots to do and coming up in the week ahead... but, in all of this my country, the United States of America, is in massive distress. New Orleans is under water, American citizens are being classified as "refugees", we're seeing pictures every hour of every day of our own nation that make most horrified third world nations look civilized, rampant violence, on top of which our federal government is unprepared to deal with the situations that are arising and even more so can't articulate what is in fact being done. The American economy is in flux due to changes in American capacity, one of our nations largest and most vital ports has been destroyed, not to mention the facilities that were supplied by the port, drilling capacity in the gulf has been crippled, petrol costs are sky rocketing out of control, above and beyond what we were already suffering, and to top all that off a large amount of our population is now re-evaluating our own opinions and views of our own governments ability to manage the situation. This is a difficult time. In light of his historic and trying time its hard to get terribly worked up over just about anything else, and everything looks pretty petty and pointless in comparison.
i want to help. I have a family to support and commitments to keep, but that doesn't mean I can't. If you have an organization that has been effected by Katrina and need administrative help to get back on your feet, I want to know! Many of us can't go to the area and help, nor would we be much use if we were given the current situation, but many sysadmins like myself could help organizations that need to get an infrastructure back up outside of the area. Maybe you know someone who needs resources to get mail systems functioning again. Small and medium size businesses that need websites and contact systems replaced. Whatever it is, there have got to be hundreds of people and organizations down there that could use IT help and likely will have as their biggest need to get their IT assets either moved out or recovered somewhere outside the area. I'm in the Silicon Valley, we could take tape backups and try to procure colocation space here and get your services back up. There are other admins around the country and world that I'm sure would also be willing to help you do what needs to be done to get back online. If you've got systems that survived and need a new home, we can find a place for them and get them back up. I'm sure there are plenty of companies that would donate resources, temporary software licensing, and so forth to meet the needs. I can personally guarrentee that if you need systems from Sun to help you rebuild after this disaster that they will ensure that your order is pushed to the front of the line to get your needs meet as quickly as possible. I'm sure that other vendors would do the same for their customers.
If there is anyone in the Gulf Coast area screaming for IT and UNIX systems help, there are people like myself out here that want to help you, we just need to find a way to connect. Part of the recovery from this disaster is going to mean getting all those small business in the area back on their feet as quickly as possible to ensure their survival, business doesn't pause untill a disaster has ended, we need to get these organizations back on their feet as quickly as we can. Small business is essential to the industry and to the American economy, its the America Spirit. I can't rescue people from flooded homes, but I might be able to help some organizations in need have a fighting chance to stay alive. Maybe no one needs sysadmins right now, maybe there is just no way to connect with the people who might need IT help, and most likely the individuals that need our help have bigger issues on their hands right now, but I've sure as hell got to try to do something for them.
If your an admin who feels the same way and wants to help, use your blogs and put out the word. If your a vendor, get the word out that your ready and willing to do what is needed to re-establish those small and medium sized regional businesses and organizations infrastructures, not to mention getting resources to rescue and support organizations. In this day and age, situations like this depend on water and shovels and sweat and blood, but they also depend on databases and mail servers and IM clients. In situations like this the types of performance issues that we as sysadmins deal with every day can be slowing down decision making proccesses that could be saving lives.
Most importantly, if your effected by this catastrophy and need IT/UNIX systems help, please please please let me know and lets find out how to help you get back on your feet as quickly as possible. If you know of an organization that needs help from an admin, let me know. There are lots of needs down there and there are lots of us that can help, its just getting together thats the hard part.
Anyone that knows me has heard my motto "Admins help Admins", thats the UNIX way, as far as I'm concerned. Thats the foundation of UNIX and BSD and open source and the modern electronic world, we all help each other and thats what makes SysAdmins and Systems Engineers so special. In extreme situations like this as an admin and as an American I might not be able to do much more than send some money to the Red Cross but I have a duty to both my nation and profession to at least try.
To everyone in the Gulf Coast, our prayers and thoughts are with you. To the surrounding areas and to all the people who will be helping with the relocation efforts, we're thinking of you and your difficult task ahead. To those in law enforcement, the National Guard, and the US Military that are going over, we pray for your safety and judgement while tending to the strained and dangerous situation. For all those who have the ability to volenteer and are helping, whether by collecting blood, housing families, proving resources, tending to the displaced, search and rescue, medical assistance, security, or even just prayers, God Bless You.
I couldn’t agree more about the Unix “spirit”, all of us in this industry are fairly well off. Sacrificing but a small amount of our time, knowledge or wealth can help others in less fortunate situation more than we can imagine. I can understand that outside of the US, due to anti-american sentiment this may not be such a popular cause as compared to something like the Asian Tsunami, however as humans we all have a duty of compassion to each other regardless of our nationality, faith or allegiances. You are in our prayers America.
Che - 02 September '05 - 03:31
Ben,While it is certainly tragic what has happened in New Orleans, an American city being wiped out by a natural disaster is not new. You live in a rebuilt SF and unlike New Orleans, you can’t get out of the way of an earthquake. They were told to leave before the hurricane hit. They knew something like this could happen. Now people are pointing fingers and blaming the government for letting them down, etc. While the port facilities are probably down at this time, the oil rigs probably weren’t that damaged. The workers shuttle to them by helicopter and Houston will probably be able to take up the slack as far as oil imports and processing. What is bad is that the refineries that produce gasoline are offline and cut off. How bad, no one knows. So, everyone will feel the pain. I’m sure we will all help those in need. I feel especially for the doctors and nurses, police and firemen who stayed behind to help the sick, infirm and newborns too young to move. Give blood, give money, give what you can. But don’t give your all. The world’s suffering is bottomless and will swallow you whole. Some of those trapped in New Orleans got themselves into their current predicament. They did it to themselves and everyone knew that New Orleans was always a levee away from disaster. Do we continue to subsidize stupidity, or fix it so that it doesn’t happen again? The obvious answer is the latter, but people do dumb things all the time and human nature being what it is,, we tend to try to tame nature rather than live with it. We don’t build cities in earthquake zones to survive largely intact after violent geological events and you can see that the people of New Orleans put too much confidence in trying to tame nature rather than living with it. The levees hurt them rather than help them now because the water can’t drain. The best thing you can do is take care of yourself and your community and ensure that when the next big one hits SF, that it doesn’t become a Kobe, Japan. SF isn’t there yet, I’ll bet.
Sincerely,
John
John Moore (Email) - 02 September '05 - 08:36
Also, give your money to the Salvation Army. They spend most of their donations helping people. The Red Cross doesn’t. When people found out that they were going to put 50% of the donations they received from 9/11 in the bank for a rainy day, everyone got ouraged, but the Red Cross has always had that policy. A teacher of mine survived a tornado and he said that the Salvation Army took care of his family but the Red Cross wasn’t as helpful. I’ve always remembered that story. I do not mean to denigrate the good the Red Cross does, but they are not as efficient as the Salvation Army. It’s like the difference between the Army and the Marines. The Marines get things done with second rate equipment and first rate people. They take pride in that. The Army gets first rate equipment , but doesn’t always get the job done. If I had to choose whose help I would want it would be the Marines. Ditto for the Salvation Army.John Moore (Email) - 02 September '05 - 08:45
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