NZ volunteer helps reunite Katrina victims and families

Lynne Pope woke up yesterday to find 191 emails waiting for her.

Now she is trying to figure out what to say to a family from New Orleans who watched police shoot a relative, and now can't find his body.

And how does she reply to a mother looking for her 22-year-old son who is autistic and can't communicate?

The Palmerston North City councillor, Peter Koch in Switzerland and Texan Jonathan Cutrer are the core of a group of volunteers who have set up a website, Katrina Evacuee Help Centre at www.disastersearch.org, to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Mrs Pope, who runs an internet design business, was participating in an international software development forum, online, when a pastor from Louisiana, who is in charge of the shelters in his area, posted a message asking for help with his website.

"When Peter got talking to him we found the problem wasn't his website, but that there was not a centralised unified database for people to use," Mrs Pope said.

"We actually thought that the federal Government disaster agency would have set something up before the disaster ... so as nobody had done it, we did."

In the first 24 hours more than 500 people visited the site and by the time it was launched 12 families had made contact with each other for the first time since the hurricane struck, she said.

"We didn't even get to develop the site and test it before people were using it.

"The need is so urgent."

The site contains the names of more than 300,000 people missing after the hurricane. While Mrs Pope receives a couple of emails a day asking to have names removed from the list because people have been found, she receives "dozens and dozens" asking to remove names because their bodies have been found, she said.

"There have been many tears."

The team members, who do not get paid, have had hundreds of volunteers from all around the world, including web designers and software programmers, helping out and have been working flat out for 18 to 20 hours a day for the past 11 days, she said.

A big problem was getting word out to people on the ground that there was a large website worth looking at, she said.

As well as missing persons, other features of the site include downloadable Government aid forms, a volunteer register, morgue listings and a job registry. The database can be searched via cellphone and one volunteer group has been distributing cellphones around the shelters and others have been setting up internet booths at the shelters.

Mrs Pope said they were now getting support from US senators and many agencies were contacting them to add their databases to one central location. "It's getting bigger by the day."

Website testimonial

This would be an incredible act of faith and kindness if it were created by an American. The fact that you aren't a native and took the time and effort to do this elevates you to sainthood in my opinion. Thank you so much. RT, Michigan

- NZPA