Red Cross To Use 'KatrinaSafe' People-Locator in Future Disasters

Published: September 6, 2006

by Alex Woodie

A Web application created by Microsoft last summer following the disaster that befell the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina has been adopted by the American Red Cross as a standard for helping family, friends, and co-workers locate each other and exchange information about their welfare in the wake of a disaster.

Microsoft developers managed to launch www.katrinasafe.com in a matter of days following the landfall of that historic hurricane, which displaced more than half a million people from their homes. The KatrinaSafe application helped both evacuees and the people looking for evacuees by hosting a database of names and contact info and a way to search that database. The system even offered a Microsoft Speech Server-powered notification system that would place a telephone call when a specific person had been located. Over the last year, more than 340,000 people have logged on and used the Web site tool, according to Microsoft.

Now the American Red Cross and Microsoft have collaborated on the development of a tool similar to KatrinaSafe for the for the Red Cross Web site. The tool, which is called Safe and Well, is up and running at www.redcross.org, and will be put to use during future disasters. You can access the new tool directly at https://disastersafe.redcross.org.