"Tornado Trackers" - Video of the Worst Part of Hurricane Laura

Unbelievably destructive...

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The Capital One Tower Following Hurricane Delta

This photo shows the Capital One tower in Lake Charles, LA following Hurricane Delta. The boards you see in the windows were placed there after Hurricane Laura knocked several of the windows out of the building.  As you can see, most of the boards remained in place following Hurricane Delta.

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Laura - The Category 4.9 Hurricane that was Labeled a Category 4 Hurricane

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Photo of Damage to Rooftops Taken from Above Lake Charles, LA

This is a photo that was taken by Lora Perkins that shows the damage to roofs from above Lake Charles, LA following Hurricane Laura. Right now, Hurricane Delta is about to hit the same areas of Louisiana that Hurricane Laura hit less than two months ago.

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An Open Letter to All U.S. Congressmen Regarding Facebook, Natural Disasters, and a Threat to National Security

Update - October 10, 2020:

Aug 26, 2020 - The Public Facebook group "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" was created

Oct 7, 2020 - The same group changed its name to "SWLA Hurricane Aftermath 2020"

The group SWLA Hurricane Aftermath 2020 (formerly Hurricane Laura Aftermath) can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/350081832688269/

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Dear Representative or Senator,

My name is Casey Jones and I live in the Houston, TX area. I'm a native of Texas but my family moved to Louisiana when I was young and so I lived there for several years before moving back to Texas. I'm a software developer and have been for many years and I have extensive knowledge about what makes applications work and I'm referring mainly to all of the things that take place behind the scenes that most people never think about because they simply have no reason to.

As a result of my personal efforts to help people in Southwest Louisiana following Hurricane Laura and the destruction left behind in its wake, I noticed a somewhat potentially serious issue with social media, and in particular, with Facebook and the possibility for a bad actor to use it in a harmful way in order to disrupt recovery efforts following major natural disasters such as Hurricane Laura.  It is also just as possible for someone to inadvertently and unknowingly hinder or disrupt the recovery efforts in the same manner.

I am about to explain how this is possible but first I am requesting that you bring in some people who are familiar with computer programming, Internet based application development, and social media with advanced knowledge about Facebook so that you may get their advice about what I'm going to explain in this letter.

I feel that it is important for you to note that even with all of my many years of experience and advanced knowledge on these specific topics, the potentially huge negative impact that this issue can have on a recovery effort following a major natural disaster was neither immediately apparent to me, nor was it something that would seem to be a problem for an entire population of disaster victims. However, I do believe that this issue is exactly that and that it is much more serious than the majority of people will realize without some help from some experts in these specific areas of technology helping them along and building a better understanding of the subject matter.  This is especially true for anyone who doesn't grasp these things as a seasoned developer or other type of industry expert should or eventually should understand them.  

As I said, even subject matter experts might need to think about what's involved for a while before the gravity and the full scope of how bad this can be actually sinks in, but I'm confident that at some point following having focused on all I have to say here, a true expert will eventually realize the magnitude of the potential for causing serious negative consequences for countless people who don't need any additional problems added to the ones they probably already have in the wake of a major natural disaster. I've taken the time to emphasize all of this because it is important for people in positions such as yours not to discount or disregard any of this as a trivial matter because I assure you, this is not a trivial matter and it needs some attention from the people who can actually do something about it. People in positions such as yours can prevent negative consequences from transpiring as a result of not being aware of details surrounding this topic by hearing me out, as I'm about to inform you.

That said, let me explain what I've seen in the wake of Hurricane Laura and when I'm finished I feel like you will have what you need to better understand the potential problems involved, how and why I even noticed any of this, and even some suggestions for how to effectively deal with this issue and prevent it from ever becoming a problem in the first place. Ideally, that is the goal I'd like to reach, and reaching it is the sole reason I'm even writing this letter today.

When Hurricane Laura made landfall in Louisiana near the town of Cameron around 1:00 a.m. CDT, it had official and verified sustained wind speeds of 150 mph making it a very strong category 4 hurricane and putting it right on the verge of being a category 5 hurricane. If the sustained wind speeds had been a mere seven mph faster, it would have been labeled a category 5 storm rather than a category 4. A wind gust of 128 mph was reported at the Lake Charles Regional Airport around the time the storm hit land. It is estimated that Laura maintained hurricane intensity for the next 10 hours as it moved northward into northern Louisiana and decimated much of the region along its path.

Reports of damage in the immediate wake of the storm were very limited and vague for several hours following landfall, and I was busy trying to get an accurate idea of just how bad the damage was as soon as possible. I began working on things immediately after the storm had cleared the Lake Charles area. Lake Charles and the surrounding area is where I know most of the people that I know in Louisiana.

Not long after the storm had passed through Southwest Louisiana, a friend of mine on Facebook sent me an invitation to join a public group called "Hurricane Laura Aftermath"; I accepted it and immediately that group proved to be very useful, and I was a very active member of it as well.  It only took about three days following the storm for that group to reach a viral growth rate status and it had already reached 105,000 members by that point in time.  

That group was on track to be a real force in the recovery process and it seemed obvious that it would soon be able to fill the void where the national news has typically always been but for some reason were mostly missing. Usually they'd be setup somewhere with boots on the ground covering the aftermath of the disaster, but all things considered, the absence of the national news coverage came as no shock to me personally as it seemed to fall right in line with their absence for other recent events that they would have covered based on historically similar events in the past.  With the way the past few years have gone, especially everything that has happened in 2020, I could wake up with my head stapled to the carpet and it would not shock me at this point in time.

Unfortunately, it was about this same point in time, around three days or so after the storm had passed that the administrators and the moderators of that group made the decision to make the group a private group rather than keep it a public group. I'm not sure exactly how long it took from the time they did this until I realized they had, but I do know that it wasn't long, and it was quite obvious when I saw some information posted there that I wanted to share and there wasn't a "share" button on the post as all of the posts I had already shared from that group's members had. I checked the share settings for that particular post to see if the person who posted it had changed their personal share settings and it didn't seem that they had, so I checked some other posts from various members and it was the same, there wasn't a share button anymore, and that could really only mean one thing, which was that the administrator had changed the group to private.

Within about 10 minutes from the time I first noticed the change, I had already created a post and even received several replies. I directed the post to the administrators and asked what they had done and why, and several people replied that the decision was made because too many people were arguing about things like politics, or other issues that weren't necessarily on topic and really had no place in such a group. Knowing what I know about social networking and programming however, the change the administrators made to that group meant that as soon as the change went into effect it instantly killed the viral growth rate of the group and ensured that from that point forward, membership levels would increase at a snail's pace rather than at the viral rate they had achieved within only a few days. 

It was a devastating blow to social media efforts for Hurricane Laura victims, and that was immediately apparent to me.  I urged the administrators to reconsider and to employ the tools that Facebook has built-in to their administrator controls that are specifically designed to deal with things they had sighted as the reason for switching to a private group. It seemed ludicrous to me to throw away so much potential in addition to a viral rate of growth because people were arguing; such a tradeoff and the willingness to make such a trade signified to me that one of two possible choices had to be true: (a) the administrators were too inexperienced to be in charge of such an important group as theirs was/is/could have been (or) (b) this was being done intentionally for some reason to hurt the social media efforts regarding the recovery process.

For as bad as this seemed from my perspective and with the knowledge I have on the subject matter, it was over the course of the next week or so that I would consider some possibilities that I never had considered before this transpired which would result in the full gravity of what this handful of people had actually done, and it is far worse than simply changing a group's settings from public to private. Such a change would normally be trivial and would go unnoticed by everyone involved, but this particular group has some attributes that most other Facebook groups do not. 

For one thing, Hurricane Laura Aftermath was public when it began, and it was made specifically for the aftermath of Hurricane Laura.  Next, Hurricane Laura caused major widespread damage leaving many thousands of people displaced, without electricity, without normal lines of communication, without water,  without access to prescription medications, and in some cases probably without an ample supply of food, and mostly without readily available first responders because in the wake of such disasters there is really nowhere in the world where there are enough first responders who can get to everyone who suddenly find themselves in a bind that requires such assistance. 

On top of all of that, any first responders who respond to calls immediately following a storm such as Laura are going to need a chainsaw and a non-contact voltage tester and someone who is familiar with both in order to safely make it to the people who need help at that point. If nothing else in that situation is a certainty, what is certain is that there will be trees and there will be power lines laying across roads all over the place.  They will also need to have a readily available supply of fuel as well, for the vehicles and for the saws.

Most groups on Facebook, and by most I mean probably around 99.99% of the groups on Facebook do not pertain to things that even come close to how critical the subject matter of a group such as Hurricane Laura Aftermath was, but when you factor in the lack of national news coverage on this storm it makes social media many times more important than it typically would be. But wait, this is where it starts getting much worse than what I've already discussed, because the timing of when that group switched to private happened at very critical points in time and as a direct result, whether it was intentional or not or whether anyone immediately notices it or not, is also responsible for the social media reach of every local news channel posting about it to also be greatly reduced.

I'll explain. The group had 105,000 members when the decision to go private was made. That translates into 105,000 of the most active members of Facebook and who are also mostly residents in or near the affected areas suddenly being put into a private bubble without having any idea whatsoever that this is what has just happened. These are the people who are doing most of the posting and most of the sharing of information related to the storm, including most of the sharing of news and storm related information that they're obtaining from local news stations in or near the affected areas. 

That wouldn't normally be a bad thing if it weren't for the fact that most of those 105,000 people are sharing that information primarily in that private group, and unfortunately the only people who can see what each of those posts pertains to are people who are already members of that group. They are 105,000 people posting 21,000 posts per day primarily with each other, over and over and over again, and that is in addition to the fact that the viral growth of the membership of that group ceased to exist as soon as the button was pressed changing the privacy level of the group from public to private.  

That is 21,000 posts per day that are doing very little for the overall social media effort, and so the group I'm talking about here ends up being much worse for combined efforts than it would be if it didn't exist at all, and with every new member it adds to that group, it takes that person away from an effort elsewhere that might actually help the social media reach. The more active members in that private bubble, the worse it is for social media reach for this topic.

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To Be Continued...

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There are a number of problems with this entire scenario that I have had to watch play out before my eyes in real time since the storm moved through the affected areas, and to truly grasp the gravity of what this has caused will not even be possible until long after I'm finished writing this letter. As a matter of fact, it will be after the recovery process is completely finished, which could take years.

It will take researchers and social media experts many hours of looking at related data and comparing various data to historically similar data that predates this particular natural disaster just to highlight the fact that there was in fact an anomaly and that it did cause adverse negative consequences to countless storm victims.  But the worst part of all of this is the fact that none of this is readily noticeable so nobody will even look into what I'm saying here unless this is drawn to someone's attention and it triggers certain connections. 

So where would someone even start looking to see the damage this Facebook group has caused the overall social media efforts to help the recovery process? Local news stations and their social media reach following the storm would be one place. If you compare that data to the same data from past natural disasters I believe you will see a noticeable reduction in each news station's social media reach and effectiveness.  You would have to base conclusions on percentages and estimates however, and unfortunately there is no way to be sure of the exact extent of damage that group caused to the people affected by the storm.

I have no doubt whatsoever in my mind that this group has caused a great deal of damage to the overall recovery process though, and that is because they have caused a significant reduction in overall awareness of the situation in the affected areas following the hurricane. This was either the worst case of accidental waste of social media momentum and reach potential that I have ever seen for as long as I've been using social media, or someone has done this to intentionally hinder the recovery process by reducing overall awareness of the extent of damage caused by the storm.

In light of the fact that the national news media outlets have likely had to go out of their way to not cover the storm's aftermath to an extent that even nears a fraction of their coverage of historically similar events that predate this storm, and that it's possible that not covering the damage that Laura caused took them as much effort as giving it better coverage would have, it seems almost as if they have been forbidden by someone to provide that media coverage.  It seems like someone with the power to give such an order is intentionally trying to conceal the situation and the extent of damage following this particular disaster.

Considering that the majority of the people who use social media don't have the technical background that I do, or that other programmers do, it would be much simpler to make the social media reach disappear.  All you'd have to do to make that happen would be to do exactly what the Facebook group "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" did, and you'd virtually ensure that the storm victims would have the minimal amount of social media reach possible. 

It is entirely possible that this was not intentional, but considering what I've seen with the purposeful lack of national news coverage following the storm, it is also just as possible that stopping the social media coverage of the storm was also as equally intentional as stopping the national news coverage has been.

Here's the thing though, if what has transpired with the Facebook group "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" hasn't been by design from the beginning, then you should certainly be aware that using such a tactic and causing such a disruption in the recovery process is probably something that could be employed as an espionage tactic against the U.S.  Most people will never notice that anything is causing problems with a tactic such as this one would. Even people who use social media on a professional level on a daily basis will most likely never notice an issue unless it is brought to their attention directly and they conduct a thorough investigation involving a great deal of data.  And even then, a lot of the required data would not even be available until long after the recovery process is completed which would provide a bad actor ample time to cover their tracks and just disappear.

To most people, a tactic such as that one would be would simply never be noticed. It would provide a serious disruption to the overall recovery process and cause additional problems and it would simply be attributed to the storm rather than the fact that there was someone intentionally causing additional difficulties for victims of the disaster. It would be a perfect way, a virtually undetectable way to disrupt a large region of a country and would most likely go unnoticed by anyone.

It is crazy to think that something as seemingly harmless as a group on Facebook could cause a national security threat like that, but after seeing what I've seen following Hurricane Laura, whether you believe it or not I assure you, it can happen.  

It is probably not a simple coincidence that my Facebook account was permanently disabled after attempting to draw attention to all of this. I had that account for well over a decade and probably closer to two, and it was only after I saw all of this transpiring and tried to bring it to peoples' attention that my account simply got shut down by Facebook without any kind of explanation or reason provided by them.  Shortly after that took place, they made a revision to their Terms of Service, here's a screenshot of what that change was:

I can easily see how what I'm trying to point out here might cause them some adverse legal or regulatory impacts, because in all honesty, there needs to be some regulatory impacting going on after being made aware of this issue.  I mean, the U.S. doesn't need to be vulnerable to such a scenario as the one I have pointed out here, and if the U.S. remains vulnerable to such a tactic then it is our own fault for not doing something about it. You know about it now, so please help fix it. 

This could be easily prevented by Facebook, all they'd have to do is make it to where anytime a public group is created regarding a major natural disaster, that group doesn't have the option to change its privacy setting from public to private.  That would squash it, that would prevent it from being possible.  Considering how simple it would be to fix this, in addition to my account being permanently "disappeared" by Facebook all of a sudden, I've even wondered if Facebook might somehow be behind intentionally doing this in order to stop the social media reach in a concealed way.

This could also be prevented by the United States Legislature by forcing Facebook to make this simple change and relieving them of holding such power over the people whom already fill their pockets with gold. It's unfortunate that I had to lose my account in order to make all of these connections and consider all of these possibilities.  Que sera, sera I guess. To my friends and family members, I apologize for my abrupt and unexpected disappearance, but now we all know the most likely reason for that happening.

 Sources for some of the information in this letter:

https://blogs.nasa.gov/hurricanes/tag/laura-2020/

 

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Finished the Job on Fontenot Rd in Westlake

The tree was way too big for my 20" bar, but we finally got the job done. Left them a cross on the stump.

The cross is about 3" to 3 1/2" thick and about 3 feet tall.  The tree was red oak, so this thing will last for a minute, it's solid.

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Westlake, LA - 09.26.2020

Trying to finish up the largest tree we've had to cut since we've been here. This thing has been a job because the trunk was still attached to the stump which made for a dangerous situation. Had to be really careful with each cut because there's a lot of weight in the trunk and the last thing I'd want is for this thing to fall or roll over on me.

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Before:

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Heading Back to Louisiana Today

I had to stop what I was doing last week, break camp, and head back to Pearland, TX because of the tropical storm "Beta" that was heading toward our home. I needed to be here with the family because we weren't sure how bad it was going to be.

I'll be loading everything in a few minutes and heading back that way to finish the job I was working on when I left, already discussed it with the homeowner, and not sure what I'll be doing from there. I had some things lined up on Facebook, but Facebook disabled my account over a video I posted that I wasn't even aware violated their terms of service when I posted it. Obviously, I would not have posted it had I known that, but in any case, it seems that they have disabled it permanently as a result of this issue. They gave no explanation or reason why, I can only assume at this point as to what caused this.

For that reason however, now I have no way to contact the numerous people I was communicating with regarding help they needed. If you need my assistance with cutting trees out of your yard, please leave a comment below describing what you need, and we can discuss the details via email or Google messenger. I'm looking for elderly people to help, or people who have disabilities, or people with some type of physical hardships to help because I'm doing this free of charge.

I'm not licensed or bonded, so I won't cut trees that are on houses or involved in any insurance claims without a signed waiver relieving me of any responsibility for any damages which might result from any such attempt at removing a tree in such a position.  To be completely honest though, I'd rather not do this at all because if something were to happen as a result of something I did, I'd feel bad about it and I don't have the money that would be required to pay for it.

If anyone needs me to sign a waiver of responsibility stating that I won't file a lawsuit against them if I have any kind of accident, I will sign one before I start working.  Just so everyone will know ahead of time, I won't sue anyone if something happens to me because I know full well what the risks are and I'm doing what I'm doing knowing this from the beginning. I'm pretty skilled with a saw, but that doesn't mean that something couldn't happen, but I am very careful while I'm working because I'd rather not get hurt; it's a personal preference of mine.

One other thing, depending on how many trees or the size of them, I may need someone to help moving the pieces as I'm cutting, I can't always do both. I've been to places that have so many trees to cut that just using the saw is an all day project and it is also enough to wear someone out.  I'm willing to chop it up for you, if you can have someone you know move it somewhere that it can be hauled away.

If all of this is good with you and you or someone you know needs a hand from someone with a saw, let me know in the comment section below and I will try to get to it.  I'm only one guy, so I can only do so much, but I'm doing what I can to help as many people as possible.

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Photos from Hurricane Laura

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Fixed the Mobile/Tablet Views

I didn't realize it until a few minutes ago but I didn't have my mobile and tablet views configured correctly so I apologize if anyone had a difficult time reading the articles. I believe I have the issue fixed now, but please let me know if you have difficulty on your mobile devices or tablets and I'll do what I can to fix any issues.

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U.S. Congressman Garret Graves in Louisiana's 6th District Helps with Cleanup in Moss Bluff, LA

By: Casey M. Jones

It was Friday, September 11, 2020 and it was the second location I visited in the time I have spent in Louisiana voluntarily cutting trees for people affected by the storm, free of charge, and it was anything but a typical day to say the least. Although when I made my way toward a church in Moss Bluff, Louisiana that I had never attended before and where I didn't know anyone, I had no idea what was about to happen. I was heading over there to that church because a friend of mine had suggested going there to see if someone needed my help.

When I arrived there were some people moving around in the front of the buildings in the parking lot and driveway area, there were canopies setup, and there were a few people randomly coming and going. I approached two men and asked if the pastor was around, and one of them replied, "That's me, I am the pastor. Can I help you?", and I introduced myself and explained why I was there. The church was "Moss Bluff Pentecostal" and the pastor was "Jared Pugh". The pastor spent a few minutes on his phone looking for someone who needed help from someone with a chainsaw, and he found an elderly woman in his church who needed trees and limbs cleared, gave me the address, gave me a hotdog and I was on my way.

When I arrived at the address the pastor gave me, it was obvious that I was in the right place, as there was plenty of cutting that needed to be done. The driveway was fairly long and the woman's daughter was standing in the driveway near the house talking to an insurance adjuster and I rolled down my window and introduced myself. As I was sitting there talking to them, another vehicle pulled into the driveway behind me and we had no idea who it was, so I went ahead and pulled out of the way and started taking out my saw and getting things ready to start working.  The man behind me pulled in next to me and parked.

He walked up to the daughter and I and introduced himself, he said, "Hi. I'm Garret. The pastor sent me over here to help."  I told him hello and introduced myself, then told him I was going to start cutting. He started dragging branches and limbs or whatever he could carry down the driveway and piling it up by the road. I informed him that I had a first aid kit in my backpack just in case anything happened to either of us he would know it was there.

The heat was brutal just as it had been the past several days, and I was able to cut for a little bit and then I had to drink water and cool off for a little bit. This guy Garret was a machine, he had a pace that was hard to keep up with and I told him that he should take breaks and drink water to avoid overheating, but he just replied that he was okay, he said it in a way that let me know that he knew my concern was genuine and continued dragging trees to the road. I honestly couldn't tell if he was older than me or younger, but I figured we were probably about the same age, so I asked him how old he was. He was older than me, and I said, "Dang man, you're in way better shape than I am and I'm younger than you are. You're doing good..."

U.S. Representative Garret Graves from Louisiana's 6th District

as he is doing volunteer work for a complete stranger on the other

side of the state from his district. (Photo: Casey M Jones)

Throughout the day we talked here and there when I wasn't cutting, he seemed to be a real nice guy, but didn't really talk too much at first.  At some point I glanced at his vehicle and the tags seemed to be different for some reason, almost as if they were government tags but I wasn't sure. There was a faded election sticker on his window with his first and last name on it, although he hadn't yet mentioned his last name to me, and his name isn't one of the most common names so I just assumed that maybe he had run for Congress at some point in the past. By this time I had already snapped the photo of him because I suspected he might be a Congressman, and was going to check it out when I got to a place where I could do that. I asked him about it, "So that sticker on your window, are you running for Congress?" He was tying his shoe when I asked him, and he paused for a second but never looked up, and said, "Something like that..."  I said, "Oh, you're in Congress aren't you?" He admitted that he was in fact a US Representative for Louisiana's 6th House District. 

He did start talking a bit more after I found out who he was, but didn't really say much about anything related to his office.  I don't think that he was really expecting for someone to figure out who he was but seemed to feel a bit more comfortable after I did because he wasn't trying to keep that hidden anymore. I jokingly said, "Never would have thought you were a Congressman, you work too damn hard and get too much done.", and laughed for a second and told him, "Nah, I'm just kidding. I know a lot of you guys work hard, yall are busy and have a lot to deal with. I've met many Congressmen and spoken to many of them about issues as well, as I've done quite a bit of advocacy for my youngest daughter. She has a severe developmental disability and doesn't talk, but she understands us when we do. She is a sweet kid."

I asked him, "What brings you to this area of the state, do you have friends or family here?" He said, "No, I've just been through it and I know what it's like. It sucks." I said, "So you just drove over here and stopped at a random church in Moss Bluff, LA just to help someone you have never met before clear trees off their property doing manual labor for free?"  He just nodded and had a slight but humble grin when he did. Of course, I couldn't really say anything about that as it was the same exact thing I had done myself about 10 or 15 minutes earlier than he had, only I drove in from the opposite direction and came from Texas rather than from the Baton Rouge area, and I'm also not a US Congressman, but aside from those two minor differences our reasons for being there certainly seemed to be the same reasons.  I told him, "Man, that's alright..."

We both worked from the time we got there until it was almost dark and I told him I had to go because I still had to get somewhere and setup a tent. It was too late for me to do that with any daylight left though, but I was pretty wore out from swinging that chainsaw around all day and as usual, it was mainly my legs and feet that needed a break. I'm pretty sure that Garret never even broke a sweat the entire time he was out there, which is pretty impressive considering that he worked his butt off almost non-stop for several hours in that heat.  The man made it look easy and effortless, and I certainly appreciated having the help because I couldn't have done both the cutting and the moving everything to the roadside, it would have been too much.

The point we were at when it got dark left me no choice but to come back the following day as there were still very large branches of a big oak tree broken and hanging with limbs still partially blocking the driveway. I didn't really like leaving it like that, but it was too much to finish before dark so I was certain I'd be there again the following day. We were almost done, and between the two of us we did transform that place from a somewhat hopeless mess into a clean yard again. I asked him if he'd be back tomorrow, and he said he wasn't sure, they'd be back in session on Monday. I told him thanks for helping today, and that it was good to meet him, and that if he ever decided to run for POTUS he'd have my vote for sure.  I asked him if he would mind if I told anyone who he was, and he didn't say anything; it wasn't a yes and it wasn't a no. I told him, "Well, I'm gonna tell my wife for sure." He laughed for a moment, and I hopped in the truck and headed back to the church to find somewhere to setup a tent and sleep.

I can't even fathom what the odds are of having a day with the events which occured on this day, but I'm pretty sure the odds of this happening to someone are stacked highly against it; in fact, I'm fairly certain that most people will not have a day like this one in their lifetimes. For as unlikely a scenario as it is, it isn't the first time in my life that seemingly impossible situations have played out during one of my days in this place. I've personally witnessed many unlikely events take place and every time I do it still shocks me to some degree.

I do not believe in chance however; I believe things happen for a reason, especially a situation like this one where I showed up at a church I had never been to, didn't know anyone, and then went to the address the pastor gave me. Minutes later, Garret showed up at the same church, he had never been there, didn't know anyone, got sent to the same address. I will say this, the people in the 6th District in Louisiana are lucky to have a representative like Garret. I have met quite a few legislators over the years and this guy is humble, and he works his butt off, and he is just genuine. You couldn't ask for a better person to fill a public office.

Anyway, I waited a couple of days before I told anyone who Garret was. When I told the pastor he said he had no idea because Garret only mentioned his first name and didn't really say too much; he got the address from the pastor and left as soon as he had it. The entire time Garret and I were working out at that elderly lady's home he only mentioned one thing about anything related to the federal government, and that is that there should have been a bigger response from the government in the wake of the storm than what he saw going on. He did mention that one of the best things that people can do to help the recovery process is to volunteer at a church because churches do get a lot done in situations such as these. I would have to agree with him on that, for sure.

And the reason I decided to create this post is because I feel that it is inspirational to know about it. It isn't often that someone in Garret's position does something like this, and I feel like it gives people some hope in a situation where hope does a lot of good, and because of that I kind of felt obligated to share this.

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Some Hurricane Laura Recovery Effort Photos - Chainsaw Art

 Some photos from the time I've spent in Louisiana during the Hurricane Laura recovery efforts.

This is a cross I carved with my chainsaw for Pastor Jared Pugh in Moss Bluff, LA as a thank you for all he has done to help the people in the surrounding area.  He has also been very kind to me as well, allowing me to camp out at his church while I'm in the area working. He has helped by providing me with some PPE as well as donating some to my efforts to help me with fuel or whatever supplies I might need. I don't have a job and I don't have money, so this was about the only way I could thank him for all he has done to help me help the people of SWLA by being there with my saw and my experience using it, and to be able to do this free of charge for people who can't do it themselves and can't afford to have it done.

This is the reverse side of that same cross.

Just a shot taken while I was cutting with the saw.

Just a final shot of the cross without my ugly mug in it.

This is a cross I had originally intended to give to the pastor but ended up giving to the people from the biker church who have been at Pastor Pugh's church helping and feeding the community on a daily basis. They seemed to really like it, which is why I carved the pastor a new one. This was the first time I had ever tried to carve something with the saw, and the cross shown above this one was the second time, both of which I carved Sunday, September 20, 2020 before heading home to weather the approaching storm "Beta".

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Hurricane Laura Aftermath-Facebook Group that Killed Social Media Reach for LA and TX

Monday, September 21, 2020
By: Casey M. Jones

My name is Casey Jones and for the past two weeks I have been in Southwest Louisiana cutting trees out of peoples' yards free of charge.  I had a fundraiser on Facebook trying to generate donations for this effort and received a few donations, but for the most part I have had to finance the effort out of my own pocket. I had to buy the equipment which includes a generator and a chainsaw, fuel, oil, food, drinks, ice, tarps, bug spray, safety gear, and first aid supplies, and some other items as well.

Since I've been there I have been staying behind a church and living out of a tent, sleeping on fork lift pallets that I used for the floor. I have also cleared quite a number of trees since I've been there and eliminated some dangerous situations for people as well as helped them clear things out of their way so they could access driveways, walkways, buildings, etc...

In addition to this effort, I was using Facebook to communicate with people who were affected by the storm and locating people who needed help and who couldn't afford to pay for these services. At some point today, Facebook disabled my personal account and gave no reason or explanation for doing so, and so I have appealed this but am still waiting for them to respond and hopefully provide me with some kind of information as to why they did this. I have no idea what I could have done which would justify them doing this, other than tell people about the Facebook group called "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" and how that group has effectively destroyed the social media reach for everyone who is affected by the storm.

When Hurricane Laura made landfall as a category 4 storm, the maximum sustained wind was reported as being 150 mph which is only 7 mph short of being labeled a category 5 storm. Shortly after the storm had passed the public Facebook group called "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" was created and it quickly gained members. Within a few days it had reached a viral growth rate and had gained 105,000 members, and I was one of them. I was also a very active member posting what I could find to help the people in the affected areas. The group was off to a very good start and it was very helpful.

Around that time, the administrators and the moderators made the decision to change the group from public to private, and as soon as I noticed this I created a post asking them what they were doing and why. I was informed by several people that they were doing that in order to deal with arguments that people were having. I urged them to reconsider as I knew this decision would kill the momentum and the growth of the group and that it would be a bad decision for the people who were affected by the storm.  After failing to convince them to change the decision, I reluctantly left that group and started a public group called "Hurricane Laura Aftermath (Public)", even though I knew that it was nearly impossible for this group to even come close to the number of members of the group I had just left.  Regardless, I still did this because I'd rather post information in a group that I know everyone can see rather than waste all of my information in a group that only members of that group could see or share.

At some point shortly after all of this transpired it occurred to me that because the administrators of that group had made the decision to change the setting to private, by doing that they essentially changed the function of the group from a social media platform into a private forum, and that they had also basically destroyed the entire recovery efforts as far as social media was/is concerned. You may be one of the people who don't understand how this is possible or how it is possible for five (5) individuals to accomplish destroying the usefulness of an entire social media effort, so I will explain.

First, let's look at how fast the group grew from 1 member to 105,000 members; this was accomplished within a few days following the storm. Here we are today, Monday, September 21, 2020, and almost four (4) weeks after the storm and that same group has reached around 126,000 members. As soon as the group switched to private, members of the group could no longer share any of the posts from that group to any other group, page, or profile on Facebook which killed their viral growth rate and slowed growth to a crawl. 

Some argued that they could in fact share posts, but what they failed to realize is that if you aren't a member of that group already, all you see is a link back to that group and you can't see what the post is actually about. There are many people who will not even look twice at a link such as that because there isn't anything specific about the link, it is simply a link to a group and nothing more, and that is not an effective way to grow the group or to spread the message you're trying to put in front of people.  So yes, technically you could share a post from the group, but regardless of which post you share from that group, anyone who is not already a member of it sees nothing but a link to the group, nothing more.

By switching the group to private they essentially trapped anyone who doesn't understand how social media works from a programmer's perspective in a "private bubble" and that everything the members are posting in that group can really only be seen by other members of that group. Fundamentally, this is exactly how private forums function, and private forums were around for decades prior to social media platforms emerging as a superior way of reaching people with information they might not see anywhere else. Not only does this mean that the vast majority of the members of that group have no idea that their efforts are not accomplishing anywhere close to what is generally expected of social media outlets such as Facebook, but the fact that there were 105,000 members when the decision was made also means that the most active Facebook users are the ones who are in this bubble as well, and that means that even if other groups were created after the fact, there's no way that any of them would ever have a chance to reach a viral growth rate as that group had reached within only a few days of the storm.

But wait, the bad news doesn't end there, it gets worse. That decision to switch that group to private also ensured that local news stations that use Facebook as a major news delivery outlet would be trapped in that same private bubble as well, because the people who are sharing their news stories on Facebook are sharing them to that group because that's where they are and that's where they're all seeing the majority of the information coming in. So had that decision not been made, people who weren't already members of that group would be seeing people share their news articles publicly and those articles would be circulating in a much more effective way than they no doubt are at present.

The decision made by the administrators of that group could not have come at a worse time either, in the wake of one of the worst hurricanes that Louisiana has ever seen and thousands upon thousands of people displaced and homeless, without power, or with major disruptions of normal means communication or travel.  What makes it even worse is the fact that there is almost no national coverage of what is going on in the wake of Hurricane Laura so not only are the national news outlets not informing people outside of the affected areas of what is going on, but now the entire social media efforts have been completely destroyed as well. This basically means that unless people are helping with boots on the ground rather than just trying to inform people via social media, then they're really not helping as much as they might be had that decision not been made.

The more I thought about this, the worse that decision looked. It is hard to believe that a handful of people will ultimately be solely responsible for causing the entire recovery efforts to be severely impacted in a negative way, but knowing what I know from a programmer's perspective and understanding social media the way that I do, I have no choice but to personally accept the fact that this will in fact be the case where the Hurricane Laura recovery efforts are concerned. I have also considered that this entire chain of events is so destructive to those affected by the storm that it looks more like it was intentional than it was accidental.

If you think about it, this would be a perfect use for a cyber warfare or espionage tactic as it would seriously impact how quickly the entire recovery effort following a natural disaster could be brought to completion. Ultimately, having so many people in a bad situation for as long as possible would be ideal for anyone who might gain from hurting the United States.  The decision that was made has now become a threat to national security in addition to a serious hinderance to the overall recovery process for all of the people affected by the storm.

I contacted the Lake Charles news station KPLC with this information as soon as I realized the implications of what that group had done and urged them to have a social media expert consider what I was telling them. I have also contacted people who hold government office and are in a position to influence what is transpiring as a result of that group's actions. So far my pleas to anyone who might be able to reach out to the group or their administrators has gone unheeded.  I am awaiting a response from the people who hold government offices, but hopefully they will look into what I've said here as this is a serious issue and needs to be prevented from happening in the future.

Facebook could easily prevent this from happening by disallowing any group related to a natural disaster from changing the group's privacy settings from public to private. The government could also prevent this from happening by establishing official Facebook groups in the wake of natural disasters, administered by people who know how to use Facebook's built-in controls for dealing with moderation and administration related issues which are common in large groups of people on any social media platform.  Dealing with arguments is easily handled with these controls and through assigning trustworthy moderators and administrators to those positions within the group.

As it stands now, the Facebook group "Hurricane Laura Aftermath" and their administrators either don't care about the storm victims, don't understand social media and how it works well enough to administer such an important group, or are doing this intentionally to hinder the recovery efforts.  Make no mistake though, out of those three choices the administrators of that group are responsible for owning at least one of them, now the question becomes, "Which one?"  "Which one?", and "What do we do about it?"  At minimum, someone needs to reach out to the administrators and explain the problems they're causing so if they don't understand them, they are given the opportunity to learn from their mistake. If they're doing it intentionally, their group should be shut down so that all of the people who have been trapped in that private bubble can begin actually using the potential of social media to its fullest.

I will post updates to this issue as I have them, and when I'm not actually over there in the wake-zone cutting trees and cleaning up for people. By far, this is one of the worst storms I've seen in my lifetime in terms of wind damage, and I've been in many places in Southwest Louisiana in the wake of this hurricane, and in the wake of hurricanes past as well, so I know what I'm talking about here.

Godspeed to everyone affected by the storm, and I will continue to help in the ways I have control over until things get back to normal for people affected.

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