With offices and presses flooded as a result of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans news media abandoned newsprint and TV broadcasts and turned to their websites to get the news out, reports the New York Times. The daily Times-Picayune, with phone service and email going black, evacuated its offices and published online. Only one of four local TV stations was able to broadcast, using a tower and transmitter at a new facility farther away.

The internet, as a decentralized communications network, has proven more resilient than traditional media during natural disasters - "broadcast towers and printing presses were useless," according to blog publisher and online media consultant Jeff Jarvis.

Blogs, in addition to the news websites, have become magnets for advice, opinion and personal observations - as they typically do in response to major news events.

The Times-Picayune's website, www.nola.com, is run from computers in New Jersey, said Jarvis, former president of Advance.net, which oversees the websites of the Newhouse papers - owner of the Times-Picayune.

CNET provides web links - "from useful blogs to photos to details on how you can help the victims."