One year later the magnitude is still overwhelming: More than 1,800 dead, over 500,000 people displaced from their homes, and 90,000 square miles of country impacted by its force. Hurricane Katrina left an indelible image of nature’s fury upon the world, ranking it as the most costly hurricane in the history of the United States, and the second most deadly (the first being Hurricane San Felipe Segundo, which struck in 1928, killing 6,000 people). Katrina was also the first disaster in which an entire metropolitan area was evacuated and people could not return for several months. Microsoft and a consortium of other technology companies responded to urgent requests for assistance and have since met with the American Red Cross – one of the primary disaster relief organizations for Katrina – to lay out plans for how to partner more effectively, and discuss how ‘stop-gap’ measures implemented in the moment could increase the organization’s long-term disaster response capabilities.

Microsoft and its employees got involved immediately through the deployment of consultants, developers, technical analysts and customer service teams. In partnership with the Red Cross and the San Diego SuperComputer Center, Microsoft developed Katrinasafe.org, the Web site that offered survivors, who were separated from family and friends, a place to post information about their location. Jim Carroll, a Microsoft database architect from Birmingham, Ala., worked with a team of seven colleagues for almost four days straight to get KatrinaSafe.org up and running. In the days since Katrina, more than 340,000 people have logged on and used the Web site tool.

Even after the 2005 hurricane season ended, Microsoft continued working on the system to make it better. A year later, the Red Cross and Microsoft have developed a state-of-the-art tool that will be the standard for exchanging welfare information in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. The new Web site, known as Safe and Well, is up and running and will be available for faster communication during times of crisis. The site is accessible through www.redcross.org.