We should start something like the Amber Alert to help get the notice of people in the appropriate areas when people are missing and may need help.  Pass on this information if you are not in the correct area for helping.  If you don't have a blog, post to forums and in comments until everyone know.  I'm wondering if bigger search teams would help.  Couldn't National Guard get involved rather quickly especially in the cold months?   We should think about this between these kinds of emergencies.  Make a fuss.  Yell and scream even at the governor of the involved state who is the one who can get the National Guard involved.

Cyber Alert

Anyway the short story  is that James Kim and Family who were on vacation in the Northwest were attempting to reach the Oregon Coast in a Subaru Station Wagon, and have been missing since November 25th.

I've checked around and can find no positive update.  I was hoping that was old news.

Yeah, the guy is tech editor at CNET but this could be anybody's family.

We had a young family down here in Southern California a few years back that were lost over a cliff in the mountains.  They survived the crash, but succumbed to the elements as first the father left to try to get help and then the mother made a last desperate attempt to get some when he didn't return leaving the kids in the car.   Relatives were upset (and rightly so) when the search didn't start for days after the family went missing.  From that incident apparently one good result came, cell phone companies are supposed to allow emergency calls with a cell phone no matter how late a due payment is.  The family had a cell phone but it was unusable because of  a late payment.

Now we have a different, possibly even tougher problem.  

Salem News.com  has a picture of the type of car that the Kims were in and some of the basic facts of the disappearance  My sister used to live in the Salem area where the family was last seen, so this is pretty much in the right place.

 The car has California  license plates with "DOESF according to this report.  CA license plates can have up to 7 letters so some spacing may be included..  I have been told that spacing doesn't matter in CA.  There would only be one plate with those letters regardless of spacing.  I think I saw another newssite say the plate was  DOE  SF but it's all the same.

SFist has more information on the last confirmed sighting in Roseburg at a Denny's restaurant on November 25. The last cell call was from that day too.  I read before that cells are tracked even when not used, but apparently the wild area they were driving didn't have towers even.  It also has a pic of the kid's that will knot up the heartstrings and get you to do whatever you can for these people, especially if you have young  ones of your own in the child-grandchild category.

Update: Cybert Alert name has been claimed by DHS among others, but as long as we aren't making a business of it, I'm sure it's okay to use the words.  I recommend using and big bright Cyber Alert attention getter along with a post or comment.

tags: james kim  national guard  oregon  california  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit