Patent ID: 7903801

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving contact information from a subscriber whose regular communication service has been disrupted due to a disaster; establishing an account for the subscriber which associates one or more identifiers for identifying the subscriber with the contact information received from the subscriber; indexing the account in a database, such that the account can be identified based on one or more of the identifiers; receiving an inquiry from a searching person who is attempting to contact the subscriber, such that the inquiry includes one or more of the identifiers; identifying the account in the database based on one or more of the identifiers received as part of the inquiry; communicating the contact information from the account identified to the searching person so that the searching person can contact the subscriber; determining that the subscriber's regular communication service includes an email service which has been disrupted due to the disaster; and generating an auto-response email message which is communicated to any searching person who attempts to contact the subscriber using the email service.