How Hurricane Sandy Slapped the Sarcasm Out of Twitter

In Twitter’s infancy, it was debated whether or not reporters should break new news out on Twitter. Now that fact just seems silly, as small gems of news went out from many reporters right before Hurricane Sandy. @antderosa from Reuters, @Carvin from NPR and @brianstelter of the NYT were tweeting often and ordinary people relayed all sorts of important information regarding their specific neighborhoods. Users are able to literally watch large spectacles unfold. On Monday, New Yorkers were able to watch a seemingly endless loop of hurricane coverage, and when they realized the storm had some serious potential to harm, Twitter became very busy and very serious. A media expert who said he kept a close eye on the Top 10 Trends at the time revealed that almost all of the top ten trends were about Sandy. Some estimates conclude that there were 3.5 million (hashtags) #Sandy. The journalist here stated that Twitter allows you to feel like you are contributing to something bigger by being able to be up to date and retweet.

While Twitter is a global platform, it can be wonderfully local when needed. One commenter said that Twitter was phenomenally useful in finding out information about how much flooding the Zone A block next to him was having hour by hour. The TV was not even necessary! Of course, some trouble-makers stirred things up by advertising false horrors and creating havoc, and many erroneous pictures spread like wild fires. However, a commenter in this NYT article called Twitter a “pop-up town square.” Have you used Twitter in this way? Do you usually consider online groups and platforms to have characteristics of communities?

Hurricane #Sandy: The Value of Social Media in a Crisis

This article talked about various social media efforts taken during hurricane sandy to connect people, alert people of unsafe places, and alert reaction efforts.

Technologies Used:

• Google’s Crisis Map: This map showed information and specific places affected by the storm, the path of the storm, shelters, operational gas stations etc.

• Facebook: statistics done showed that “we are ok” was the most common status updates post Sandy

• Twitter: ““Over 127,000 pictures tagged #Sandy were posted on Twitter”

• Instagram: “520,000 images tagged #Sandy were shared on Instagram”

This article also talked about the downside of social media, which we discussed in class, which was a big problem during this storm.

I think social media is a vital resource in the aftermath of disasters. But, people must take tweets for example, with a grain of salt during disasters like this, because these social media forums are not news sources they are social media outlets. In addition it is important to remember, as mentioned in class, that a network built up before disasters is important or else there is no way to connect to people, and the social media cannot be used to it’s fill capacity. Despite this, Twitter and Facebook were great ways during Sandy to know if loved ones were okay and safe. Hopefully twitter and facbeook will play a large part in uniting relief efforts post Sandy.

Furthermore, I did research into what would have happened if there was social media involved when hurricane Katrina hit, and came across this article. This article stated that there actually WERE some forms of social media used (outside of Facebook and Twitter). For example, blogs and wiki’s were used. More specifically, The Katrina People Finder Project was created to help people unite with their families who were separated from the storm. This basically was one central data base that collected information on missing persons from various blogs and wiki’s. “The Katrina PeopleFinder Project enlisted virtual volunteers to enter data about missing and found people from the various online sources.” I think that this is very interesting because we think social media as this recent creation that has emerged in that past couple of years, but here we see the connection of people created by the onset of social media back in 2005 when Katrina hit.

#Sandy- ICTs Role in Hurricane Sandy

For the sector project this past week, our group presented on ICTs in Disasters and Humanitarian Aid. We described that ICTs can be used for disaster preparedness, disaster response and disaster recovery as a way to warn individuals, mobilize aid, coordinate stakeholders, and locate individuals- just to name a few. With Hurricane Sandy hitting the Northeastern United States this past week, ICTs played a key role in the preparedness and recovery processes. This blog outlines some of the key ICTs that were used during and after the storm to increase efficiency and minimize damage.

-          Twitter: Recommended by FEMA as one of the best ways to communicate and receive data. The Washington Post even ran a story on how to use twitter when you lose internet due to the high volume of users and capability for information dissemination. Also, Twitter s “promoted tweets” were donated to organizations such as the Red Cross so their vital information could be disseminated to twitter feeds across the country

-          Apps such as “Public Stuff” are donating their back-end resources to local governments to use for relief aid.

-          Tracking Apps- Apps such as the Red Cross were used to track the storm to enable individuals to be as prepared as possible for when the storm hit.

-          OpenStreetMaps: program utilized by New York City to allow residents to identify evacuation zones for certain areas to avoid confusion.

-          Maps/Tools: Google offered these services for disaster responders to coordinate need, location and resources.

-          Webcams: webcams were used to get live footage of areas to keep people updated on loved ones and to dissuade people from going outside and “checking”.

-          Open Content: News organizations such as the New York Times took down their paywalls during the storm and post-disaster which allows individuals to access these news sites for free and keep up to date without needing a subscription.

-          Text: Text services were opened up by FEMA to allow citizens to text a number to locate their nearest shelter.

Clearly, ICTs were heavily used in the past few days as the storm hit and in the immediate response. However, I think we will truly see these resources come into play as cities begin to rebuild and and the recovery process is managed and evaluated.