Corporate heavy-weights respond: (From tomorrow’s WSJ) “The devastation of Hurricane Katrina has shaken the way everyone — even those cosseted in comfortable corporate suites — looks at the world. It’s a graphic reminder of how thin the line is that separates a stable, secure society from chaos.”

tags: katrina, katrina response

Celebrities respond: Many have given lots of cash and then, well, there is Michael Jackson who is releasing a benefit song on a record label owned by Prince Abdulla Hamad Alkhalifa of Bahrain.

Negative numbers: Carl Bialik, the WSJ’s Numbers Guy, explains why early estimates of disaster death tolls are rarely correct. Also, estimating the number of evacuees and “missing” is challenging, if not impossible.

Gentlemen, start your search engines: (From Wednesday’s WSJ (free feature): “The race is on to become the Google of blogs.”

tags: blog search

Sad: (From an AP story) “A Hurricane Katrina refugee attempted suicide aboard a flight bound for Washington, D-C. The United Express originated in Houston, Texas, and was diverted to Nashville.”

Observation: Psychological repercussions will claim victims that will never be recorded in the tally of casualties of this tragedy.

Nashville’s PodCast Alley acqhired: According to SiliconBeat, Nashville-based Podcast Alley and its founder, Chris McIntyre, have been acq-hired by Adam Curry and Ron Bloom’s PodShow, its first acquisition since receiving $8.5 million in first round backing from the ubber-VC firms Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia. McIntyre will move to San Francisco, according to SiliconBeat.

For those keeping track, this is the second significant “acq-hire” of a Nashville RSS-centric business. The first was the NewsGator-FeedDemon deal.

tags: nashville, podcasting, podcast alley, podshow, acqhire

(via: PaidContent.org)

Al Gore responds: He chartered an American Airlines plane to fly evacuees to Chattanooga.

tags: katrina, katrina response, katrina evacuees, al gore

Nashville responds: (From AP story) “The foundation started by Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair had hoped to fill six tractor-trailer trucks with supplies for victims of Hurricane Katrina. That goal was met halfway through the 12-hour relief drive today in the parking lot of the stadium where the Titans play. The foundation has called for at least eight more big trucks because the donations are coming in nonstop.”

tags: katrina, katrina response, nashville, steve mcnair

Lycos launches Katrina meta search tool: This morning, I pointed to Yahoo!’s Katrina: Search for Missing People meta search tool that searches for names across numerous missing person forums and databases. I just learned that Lycos has a similar Search Katrina Missing Persons Sites meta search service.

Quote from Danny Sullivan, SearchEngineWatch.com:

In one go, it checks listings from more than 35 missing person sites that have sprung up since the storm. Sources of these listings are listed in the right-hand navigation.

Observation: An instant comparison (using several last names) of the two search tools leads me to think Yahoo! has a better approach and results. However, if I were looking for a loved one, I’d obviously use both.

tags: katrina survivors, katrina meta search, katrina response, katrina search, lycos, yahoo

Australian-rules blame gaming: On the radio (the story should show up here soon), I just overheard a report of an Australian Parliament session during which Prime Minister John Howard was being blamed for not responding fast enough to the need to evacuate the 50-60 Australians caught in New Orleans after Katrina.

How the breach was plugged: Fascinating WSJ story (free).

Quote:

The task was Herculean, the scene surreal and the men desperate. For the past five days, construction crews labored in a delicate, often-frustrating effort to close a breach near 17th Street in a New Orleans drainage canal as the chaos of the city’s flooding from Hurricane Katrina unfolded around them.

Katrina: Search for missing people from Yahoo!: What can I say? Thank you, Yahoo! and to some other people who know who they are. Yahoo! now has a narrow search tool that searches multiple missing-people databases that have been created over the past week. (Background)

Yahoo: Search Katrina lists from across the Web

Cut and paste the following code to display the Yahoo! search box on a web page:

<table border=”0″><tbody><tr><td>
<form action=”http://boards.news.yahoo.com/boards/bin/search” name=Search style=”margin: 0pt;”><p><input type=”text” name=”p” size=”40″ /> <input type=”submit” value=Search /></p></form>
</td></tr>
<tr><td>Yahoo: Search Katrina lists from across the Web</td></tr></tbody></table>

This, along with the Katrina PeopleFinder Project, (The PeopleFinder search tool: Katrinalist.net) display a rapid response by “geeks” who dropped everything to solve an obvious problem.

Update: Lycos now has a similar meta search tool.

tags: katrina survivors, katrina search, katrina missing

(via (and thanks): Staci Kramer)