In New Orleans, blogs become crucial decision-making tool

The fearful weather reports about Hurricane Gustav did not persuade Sheila Moragas to leave Old Jefferson, a suburb just west of New Orleans. It was the 38-year-old mother's dwindling ranks of online friends on the micro-blogging network Twitter.

One by one, Twitterers with nicknames like "HumidCity," "DomesticKitty" and "NOLADawn" pulled up stakes Sunday and left south Louisiana, live-blogging the building drama through text messages on their laptops, home computers and cell phones.

"It's been helpful," Moragas said. "It's less hyperbole, more reliable. There's also a lot of people panicking, but it's neighborly. It feels like you're talking to your next-door neighbors and trying to say, 'What's the best thing to do?' "

At noon Sunday, Moragas, known as "NOLAnotes" to her followers on Twitter, decided the wisest option was to leave, abandoning the New Orleans area in advance of a massive hurricane for the second time in three years.
"Baton Rouge. Final answer. Locked in," she declared online. "Finalizing our packing and then hitting the road." She vowed to deliver a blow-by-blow account on her blog.

Across a largely empty New Orleans, bloggers and online social networkers struggled with the question of whether they should leave or stay and ride out the storm while communicating—in real time—to friends and the world at large. Hundreds of new viewers signed on to Twitter to join the conversation.

"Look at this little thing," said Karen Gadbois, 53, a New Orleans blogger, referring to Twitter. "You can jump on it and jump off it. It's not a lifetime commitment. It's very useful."

Bloggers said their fascination with the possibilities of using online networks to track the storm and help others was fueled by new technology available to them as well as lingering frustration over the response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

Kali Akuno, an education and training coordinator with the U.S. Human Rights Network, was part of a group along the Gulf Coast reaching out to African-American bloggers to help resettle hundreds of people displaced as they evacuated ahead of Hurricane Gustav.

Online followers as far away as Oregon, Washington and Rhode Island extended offers of hospitality, Akuno said. The group had already placed 150 people, and was looking to find shelter for 200 more who contacted it in New Orleans.

"People are definitely responding," Akuno said. "The main thing we learned from three years ago was the importance of staying in contact with each other."

If nothing else, the contact has provided an emotional touchstone for a population in exodus.

"Safely in Bossier," twittered Matt Langford of Lafayette, La., known as Matt425. "Now we wait."

"In my pocket: $67.42 and my lucky scarab + king cake baby," John D'Addario (jonnodotcom) of New Orleans noted on Twitter as he fled to Alabama. His St. Joseph medal got lost in transit, he added.

Not everyone fled.

Mark Mayhew, 45, decided to ride out Hurricane Gustav in his third-floor cubbyhole on Bourbon Street.

He has armed himself with canned tuna fish, corn flakes, a case of beer and an IBM Think Pad covered in cigarette ashes. The looming hurricane has crystallized the importance of community, he said. Even if it's online.

Among Bourbon Street's transient population, Mayhew says he has met few people on his street since moving to town six weeks after Katrina left.

"Since the evacuation, I've met all of them," he said. "Are you going to stay or are you going to go? Because if you're staying, we need to talk."