MapGuy's profile (website)

Info

profile photo
Joined: June 20, 2006

Contributions

MeFi: 4 posts , 263 comments
MetaTalk: 1 post , 29 comments
Ask MeFi: 0 questions , 2 answers
Music: 0 posts , 0 comments, 0 playlists
Music Talk: 0 posts, 0 comments
Projects: 0 posts, 0 comments, 0 votes
Jobs: 0 posts
IRL: 0 posts, 0 comments
FanFare: 0 posts, 0 comments
FanFare Talk: 0 posts, 0 comments

View all activity

Favorites: 11
Favorited by others: 61

Social

Links to: 0 users
Linked by: 0 users
MeFi tags: Iraq (3) WAR (2) NASCAR (1) Marines (1) jihad (1) Islamic (1) Iran (1) Fallouja (1) Detainees (1) DanceDanceYeah (1)

About

What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.

I went down to Katrina about a week after the storm to restore communications to the Gulf Coast. There were 12 of the 13 CO's (Central Office - telecommunications switches) that had been knocked out by the storm. I worked with 30 or so volunteers. We brought in some OS3's from Mobile by microwave and began to build an open access WiFi network with VOiP to Bay St. Louis and all along the coast. We worked 20 to 22 hours a day for 8 weeks and provided computers and phone service to relief centers, government agencies and NGO's. We were stationed at Stennis Air Base, our engineering rig was parked touching the debris washed ashore at the high water mark nine miles inland. The storm serge was 34 ft where the eye of the storm came ashore. Besides designing the network and I was tasked with mapping the debris fields for the USAR (Urban Search and Rescue) teams who had come from six different states to assist in the recovery of bodies. The USAR team from Rhode Island called me “Map Guy”. For the first 7 weeks there were no bugs, no snakes, no alligators, everything was in shock or dead, everything. We found few bodies (most had been obliterated along with everything else), but almost perfectly distributed clusters of Marti Gras beads and one line on a tree, the last lime in paradise. The only thing that was left where the storm came ashore was some mailboxes and a few toilets on slabs. One of the guys we went down there with put together a coffee table book Called “Katrina A Journey of Hope.”