Hurricane Reovery Goes Online

Home page for the Houston Hurricane Recovery Site

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been working with Cindy Gabriel of Sabine Communications and the City of Houston to launch their new hurricane recovery site www.houstonhurricanerecover.org . It’s been an interesting process. I’m amazed how how many people, organizations, politicians, and companies are involved. I had the opportunity to go to one of the Mayor’s meetings where he brings all the support organizations and the media together to talk about their progress. Fascinating to see the interactions and how very challenging it is to communicate what needs to be said to the public.

Even though this is pretty much the same group that handled the Katrina hurricane aftercare, the situation here in Houston is quite different and as such, everyone seems to be having to reinvent the process. As my friend and client, Cindy Gabriel, stated from the beginning, “if you’ve seen one disaster, you’ve seen one disaster.” No two seem to be alike.

The Houston Hurricane Recovery site is an excellent  marketing tool for the city. It is a culmination of all the inforamtion you could ever need to know about getting help from the aftermath of IKE. They market the site through the various organizations and through their helpline, municipal TV, and their extensive communications department. This is the first site we’ve built on the Drupal CMS platform. The back-end of the site is being built using the Drupal technology by one of our technology partners, Mike Roberts. We like the platform because it allows us to design the site exactly how we want so we can get the best information in all the right places. With some of the CMS technology platforms, we have to back into their template and this can be problematic. We get very whiny.

We’re proud to be part of this effort and wish all the hurricane victims who are still trying to recovery the very best. It’s pretty complicated but it seems to me that Mayor White, the city and these organizations do sincerely care.

If you are interested, Mayor Bill White and Harris County Judge Ed Emmett are holding another hurricane recovery progress meeting on Thursday, November 6, 2008. Promptly at 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.  George R. Brown Convention Center, Hall 360 A-F:  3rd Floor, GRB South Wing  Topics will include Hurricane Ike recovery efforts related to:
FEMA
Home Repair
Housing Assistance
Please RSVP to Jesse Bounds at (832) 393-1025 or jesse.bounds@cityofhouston.net
Parking validation for Hilton Americas Garage at meeting location

I’ll be interested to see the progress they’ve made since the last meeting.