Blogs, including Attorney Ernest Svenson’s, providing hurricane refugees neighborhood-specific news

The Washington Post reports blogs are now providing storm evacuees with valuable information.

Evacuees who didn’t have Internet or phone access just after the Aug. 29 hurricane are slowly regaining the ability to check in on the familiar places they left behind. They report on what happened to the local school, grocery store, church or neighbor’s home. Some online dispatches include digital photos from the scene, and some feature maps superimposed on recent aerial photos of the area, such as those available on Google Earth. The Internet continues to teem with pleas for information about missing children, family members and friends.

Ernest Svenson, a New Orleans lawyer who evacuated to Houston with his family after the storm and publisher of the Ernie the Attorney, first posted parts of e-mails from friends and co-workers who’d gone back to New Orleans reporting on what they have found, including specifics by neighborhood. That prompted pleas for more information. Svenson told The Post “People got scattered and are using [the Internet] as a virtual rally point.”

Way to go Ernie, you are giving lawyers a good name.