Hurricane Katrina

[Mr MOE]

Folks:

Obviously, this is a devastating event. The first priority for most of the people in the area is their personal safety and that of their families and friends.

Some suggestions for those who are safe and able to participate in FIRST this season...

(1) having all those FIRSTers who have had teams displaced by Katrina form one unified team to compete in FRC or VEX. Logistics might be tough, but it probably could be done.

(2) focus solely on VEX this season and see if a slot can be reserved for these teams at official VEX events. VEX is less expensive and can be developed without significant facilities, which for affected teams are probably not available.

I would imagine that, should someone be able to organize this, other FIRST teams may be able to contribute to the overall cost.

[bhweezer]

The biggest problem my team competing would be funding. Most of our corporate sponsors are located on or near a major body of water, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were severely damaged or destroyed from flooding. Every year Team Fusion has a golf tournament which gets us a bulk of our funding for the year. I live about two blocks from a golf course and it was nearly wiped out, with major flooding and trees down. The course we use for the tournament is closer to where the eye of the storm crossed so it probably received even more damage. I can't see us getting the money we need to compete. I hope I'm wrong and I will try my best to get my team to a competition.

I think one of the scariest things about the hurricane is that there is NO communication along the coast. Cell phones will get service for about 5 minutes every hour, and even then you can not receive calls. I have only heard from one team member since the storm. I have another friend whose parents haven't heard from him since Sunday.