Peter Rock points to this interesting article featured on MSNBC regarding FEMA‘s website. Apparently, if you are not using MS Internet Explorer 6 or later, Katrina survivors will not be able to file for aid. Of course, IE 6 is not available for Mac or Linux.

My 90-year old mother sat out Katrina in her brother’s home next door in Diamondhead, MS, about eight miles from the Mississippi coast where the hurricane’s eye hit. They survived without injury but with massive destruction to their homes, and my mother has lost most of her possessions. I brought her to my home in California yesterday and this morning went to the FEMA website to register to start the assistance process.

To my dismay, our Federal emergency agency requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, and only IE 6, to use the website for disaster assistance. I don’t want to be political about this, but this smacks of a serious leadership failure that the use of the Internet is reserved for only the Windows community.