Wednesday, September 10, 2008 10:08 PM CDT
Gustav relief team uses the Web and cell phones to share experience in real time
By NATHANIEL WEST, Staff Writer
nwest@jg-tc.com
MATTOON — Hurricane Gustav cut off power to much of southern Louisiana, while flood and wind damage hampered travel and further intensified a sense of isolation.
But a team of relief workers from Mattoon remained tethered to the outside world through their cell phones and laptop computers, allowing them to provide updates by blogging, text messaging, “twittering” and posting high-resolution photos online.
As a result, the group from the Mattoon First Assembly of God not only relayed what they were doing in the aftermath of Gustav, but they also talked about why they were there — often in real time or close to it.
“The reason we communicated our experience in so many ways via technology is because we wanted to share the importance of serving others,” said Travis Spencer, staff pastor at First Assembly.
He and four other Mattoon-area men left early last week and met up with the Missouri-based Convoy of Hope in southern Louisiana a day after Gustav made landfall. The hurricane skirted New Orleans but devastated other coastal areas.
The Mattoon contingent was in Louisiana most of last week, distributing about 360,000 pounds — or nine semitrailers — of water, ice and food to more than 6,000 families in the Louisiana communities of New Iberia and Houma.
Spencer and First Assembly’s family life pastor, Evan Courtney, wrote on their blogs and uploaded photos using their laptop computers, piggybacking on the wireless Internet signal from the Convoy of Hope’s Mobile Command Center — a converted semitrailer with a satellite uplink.
“If we parked close to it, we could just grab their signal,” said Spencer.
Visits to his blog at www.callmetravis.com tripled after a JG/T-C story last week about their venture. Courtney, meanwhile, said he updated his blog, www.evancourtney.com, “each time I had a couple minutes of free time.”
When they weren’t blogging (or unloading and distributing the convoy’s cargo, or sleeping), both pastors used their cell phones to send text and pictures to their Twitter accounts at www.twitter.com/tspencer and www.twitter.com/mufan96.
“Throughout the entire trip, I would twitter what I was doing, where I was, etc.,” said Courtney, noting that roughly 3,400 people were notified of these posts via the Web or their cell phones.
Twitter also updated both of their Facebook accounts automatically.
“When we got home (Saturday), people asked us specific questions about the trip because they had followed us through our blogs and Twitter updates,” Spencer said.
Courtney said he even used Twitter for weather updates: “At one point, we had no clue where the storm was when we were heading south, so I twittered, ‘Where is the storm at now? I’m traveling in southern Mississippi.’ And within minutes, I had five or six people text me where the storm was at, and where it was heading.”
The group also published photos on the church’s Flickr account, www.flickr.com/photos/firstassemblymattoon. “Every night we would upload pictures to a Flickr account so people could experience the trip right along with us,” said Spencer.
Of course, they also used their cell phones for more traditional purposes — namely, calling and texting their families. “I sent a lot of text messages back to my wife, keeping her up to date in real-time to where we were,” said Courtney.
The phones also came in handy later in the trip, when they were in an area where voice communication had been crippled but texting still worked. “We were able to communicate with the fleet of Convoy of Hope trucks to find out their location via text messages,” Spencer said.
They have since published slideshows and related links on the First Assembly Web site, www.allaboutconnections.org.
“The biggest thing technology did was get New Iberia and southern Louisiana exposure to the world, for what their needs were,” said Courtney. “Hopefully others see what we were able to do in a short amount of time in that area, and it encourages them to take the step to help others.”
Contact Nathaniel West at nwest@jg-tc.com or 238-6860.
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