1. Family Reunification
During and after a disaster, there are many web sites about family reunification
E.g., Yahoo has a list of web sites after Katrina
Web:
Cached: katrinahelp.htm
E.g., American Red Cross also has a list of sites about “contacting loved ones”
Web:
Cached: redcross-lovedones.html

2. Existing Services
You can submit a request for the Red Cross to find a person, using a form on their web site 
The Red Cross will:
manually look for the person,
manually let you know:
if they find them, and
the person agrees that you can be told that they found them.  
Pull-based model, not push, as web sites put up by individuals.
Received information is never broadcast

3. New Red Cross Safe and Well Service
WASHINGTON, Saturday, July 01, 2006 — A month into the 2006 hurricane season that began on June 1, the American Red Cross is launching the Safe and Well Website to provide families with a tool to exchange welfare information with loved ones and friends in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.
Web:
Cached: redcross-new-welfare.html
Web site:

4. Heterogeneities

5. KatrinaSafe

6. Yahoo! Katrina Message Boards

7. Nola.com: Missing Persons

8. Family Messages

9. Public People Locator

10. MissingKids.com
Excel sheet:
Cached: katrina.xls

11. Conclusions Portal really necessary
IT techniques (data integration, access web forms, data files, etc.) are really needed

12. Subscrption Interface
System Architecture
Search Interface
Subscrption Interface
Query Engine
Centralized DB
Data feed
Wrapper to query
DB behind forms
Crawler to retrieve
data from web site
Module to take
message postings
Web sites with
search forms
Users who want
to provide data
Web sites with
crawlable contents