Educational technology systems are often designed by people in dry schools or offices with colleagues who have just had lunch. Brad Edmondson reports on why the notion of delivering high quality digital education opportunities to Gulf Coast schools where Dan Reed, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, described rigging up an on-the-fly wireless communications system that consisted of “a weather balloon tethered to a pickup truck with a transmitter in the bed–that instantly gives wireless Internet access to anyone who has a sightline and the right laptop,” might require a more stable social and technical infrastructure than exists right now in spite of numerous heroic efforts. Read and comment on Edmondson’s ““Katrina After The Storm” conference report here.