Twitter & Facebook: their value in an emergency?

I don't use Twitter or Facebook, and I don't know how they work. All I know is that people use them to waste time letting the world know "I'm going to the grocery store" or "I'm watching reruns of Hogan's Heroes". I hear frequently that they mine their users' personal info to a deep degree. Yet frequently I read about Twitter and Facebook being critical communication tools during emergencies that have cell service.

How does this work? If the infrastructure is intact, what do Twitter and Facebook do for you that a cellular call, text, or email don't do? If these tools are useful, how do you use them without giving up your personal info to the cloud?

Of course the Twitter and Facebook program initiatives (seen so often on CNN foriegn affairs news programmes) to provide a computer based insurrection tool to non Empire client states has of course recently has a little bit of blow back (CIA term I believe) with the organisation of the English riots by the sick morally corrupted underclass.

I prefer the British Security Services less well known Friendface.

Facebook and Twitter are what you make of them. If you don't use them, you are going to hear about the most extreme uses, good or bad. I have a Twitter account, but I don't use it anymore. Twitter is a bit more connectivity than I need.

Facebook is highly customizable, you can set it up to have as much or as little privacy as you want. I have some friends who post about once every four months, and they don't allow anybody but close friends to post on their wall. I have other friends who have 2,000+ friends, post everyday, and allow anybody to post on their wall...to each, his own.

Facebook can be highly valuable in an emergency for several reasons:

-You can send a text message to Facebook when cell service isn't quite good enough to keep a phone call connected. You just need a burst of connectivity to send a Facebook message.

-In my experience, Facebook is more reliable than cell, text or email at getting to a large group of people in a speedy fashion. At all times, it seems like at least some of my friends are on Facebook. If I sent out an emergency alert, I'm sure at least one of my friends would pick it up and run with it right away. I don't have the same confidence with text or email.

-Facebook has a "News Feed". You could literally go to your News Feed and see the most recent post from one of your friends. You could send a message specifically to that friend who just posted because they're likely to be online at that moment. You can't do this with cell, text or email.

-Contacting someone on Facebook means the person is on the Internet and is capable of performing Internet searches (e.g., Google) immediately. This is not necessarily the case with cell, text or email.

DON'T GET ME WRONG. Sometimes cell, text or email is better, just like sometimes a ham radio is better. Each technology has its own advantages. Overall, rationalizing your way out of using a particular technology is dumb. At least try something out and see for yourself.

Cell phones were virtually useless for the first few hours of 9/11 and the system was overloaded again during the east coast earthquake two weeks ago.

Texts often go through when cell calls won't.

Facebook turned out to be a very good resource for finding out the earthquake's effects around the region as it provided a lot of input in one place -- personal experiences and re-posts of news media reports. Facebook is also an efficient way of letting people know you're okay.

Facebook was also useful during Hurricane Irene. Friends and I used it to receive information and to lobby for attention from the power company after days of being without power.

Twitter could have provided a similar service as far as receiving and disseminating information, but I don't use my Twitter account much.

I'd be dealing with a lot more phone calls if not for Facebook and Twitter.

You should carefully consider the privacy controls available (or not), how wide you want your Facebook or Twitter circles to be and what kind of information you are comfortable with sharing with those groups.

Ever mindful that it could be discovered in a background check later on....

The best feature about Facebook & Twitter is that you only have to send (and be charged for) one text message which will then be recieved by everyone who is "following" you. This is much more convenient then calling all your "out-or-area" friends and family to let them know what's going on.

I have my "Merriwether" persona Facebook and Twitter accounts linked so that anything I post on my facebook account automatically gets sent out on my Twitter feed, which makes it even more convenient.

Many emergency services providers are also setting up feeds to get out information to the people in their areas. They post stuff about possible dangers (weather, flooded road, WILDFIRES, etc) and how to escape, where to go for help and stuff like that.

Here in Houston for the Blast-clan it's useful. If you don't have many friends or family out of state or in other distant locations or if the fire/police/other emergency units don't have feeds then maybe these social networks aren't all that useful for you. Security-wise, you can set them up with no personal information at all and just allow known friends/family to access it.

-Blast

Another benefit of Twitter, if you have network connectivity, is that it updates its search ability faster than Google updates its info via it's internet-wide spiders.

For instance, if you're in a post-thunderstorm area, and you're trying to find out if a main road road is clear between your home and a family member's, chances are a busy road should be traveled by someone with a smart phone. A quick search on Twitter for the road's name, and you'll possibly find a tweet about it (especially if a tree has fallen in the middle of it). At least if there are reports, it'll show up hours more quickly on Twitter than as a news result on Google.

I don't use Twitter so I can't comment on that.

However, regarding Facebook - that is how I found info on my friends who were in those tornados in Alabama a while back.

And Facebook is how I found info on an old friend of mine who fell, having a severe head injury. I was able to search out his wife, kids, old friends from high school and find out what had happened and how he was doing.

So while I used to scoff at people wasting time on Facebook, I sure don't any longer! Facebook was also a dynamite way to keep in touch with my daughter while whe was doing college study-abroad in Tasmania. And if she wasn't posting, then I could see her Facebook "friends", identify the ones also in Australia, and check their pages for updates on what they and my daughter might be doing. This worked most excellently!

Facebook is useful enough if you only linked news feeds from state, federal, organizations that you seek information from. I use FB as often a day as I can. On top of the friends aspects, anytime one of my business/professional pages I link to updates, i see those too. And by those I mean pages like FEMA, Arizona emergency management (good for wildfire updates this time of year), fish and wildlife state and federal, my local police and fire departments, certainly all the sports and endurance pursuits I follow. I seem to have picked up a Merriweather edible plants page.

I think those that DON'T use facebook would be very surprised at how much timely and relevant information that can be found on the "Most Recent" status update page. I found out the other day that a friend of mine was hit by a truck, on purpose, while she was riding her bicycle. her boyfriend updated her page b/c she was in surgery. I found out that a wildfire had started in my desert running area and the road was closed. it would have wasted 90 minutes of my time round trip to just be turned around at the roadblock.

For the record, I don't use Chat, I don't play any of the games

To use Facebook and Twitter for emergency purposes, you have to set it up as such. You have to set it up to get updates from various emergency management authorities and from the people you intend to "survive with." You can get quick updates from your people to know how/what they're doing, where they are, etc., and to give the same information about your location, etc. to a large number of people quickly and efficiently.

Some people use Facebook to network for work, or to meet guys/gals, etc. If that's what you normally do on these sites, you shouldn't expect much during emergencies. Similarly, you don't have control over what the people you'd like to survive with use Facebook for. They might use Facebook primarily to share knock knock jokes. But you'll be able to keep a line of communication open, and it's an efficient way to see who's OK and who's not.

DB

Related issue, my sister and mom do not use the Internet at all. They're quite proud of their technophobia. It irritates me to no end. They're supposed to be on my emergency contact list, but I can't put them there because they're not reachable. They always have about 8 excuses every time I bring up the problem. Somehow, it always becomes my fault why I can never reach them in a timely manner.

Also, having an uncharged cell phone is usually a planning error. My sister's cell phone is always off and seldom charged. Don't be like her. If you don't have a charger in your car, you should buy an extra one specifically for your car. I have five chargers: bedroom, office, both cars, and laptop bag. I bought my charges in bulk from EBay, super inexpensive and actually better than the original.

You need to be at least somewhat connected. I consider my connectivity to be a responsibility to my loved ones. It's so easy to be connected nowadays. Things like Facebook and Twitter are point-and-click FREE services. The computer geniuses have made it so easy for for all of us. In this day and age, there is NO VALID EXCUSE.

I wouldn't worry too much about Facebook or Twitter or any off the myriad of other instant messaging and social network web sites past and present. They are mainly for young people who don't have really nothing much to say as you have described (there are off course the unusual exceptions), in fact the process of describing how to use the communication tool becomes a totally dull point of conversation for the young folks even in trendy bars . For those who remember AOL IM, Yahoo messaging and even Myspace etc and the all the other now instantly forgettable interweb social media website, folks will soon get tired of the novelty. I remember using instant messaging on an BBC microcomputer Econet (early 80s) years before the invention of Internet World Wide Web, and it held my interest for about 15 minutes.

I still have trouble responding to folks at work who insist on using Microsoft Office Instant Messenger when they are at a desk 20 feet away.

Facebook, Twitter etc is in reality an anti social web site as it creates a tunnel visioned, blinkered view of what is really going on in the world. Just look at Youtube Justin Beiber viewing stats.

We didn't have a problem in the 70s and 80s, when we had 3 TV channels, a few radio channels and half the population didn't even have a POTS telephone in the UK. There was a lot less hysteria, panic, fear mongering and general unease generated by the media and state back then (and we had 1000s of nukes pointed at each other during the cold war).

I think I've got around 3000 unread emails in my inbox at work at the moment.

http://www.itelegram.com/ might be a better tool to ensure your emergency message gets through.

What's this new-fangled teletype stuff? All miscreants and misfits! I still have around 20 telegrams from last year I never got to. I myself prefer smoke signals. Old technology never fails. I already have a fire starting kit in my EDC. It's the easiest way for me to call for help from Rohan.

Da Bing

Don't get me wrong. I like computers but give me the good old days when computers ran on DOS.

Jeanette Isabelle

Another large group of Facebook users are the folks 20 to 50 years past high school who are reconnecting with their old friends. It's a great tool for that.

If in an emergency you want to send a emergency message then sending a cellular phone SMS to your Twitter account is a great tool as well as long as someone is taking account of the online message i.e. 'following' the twitter feed. (assuming that they still have a Internet access i.e. Out with the emergency power outage area). There are many other alternative ways to get the message through to a more targeted audience or recipient.

For example I can send an SMS formated message showing my GPS location if required from a Java app on my Samsung handset. I can also send an SMS message to POTS landline phone (BT Text) where the service provider will create a Robo voice call of the SMS text and place the message into the landline voice mail box. Even better if the recipient end user I am trying to contact has an SMS capable land line phone handset.

Most cellular handsets can also send and receive emails quite readily as well in an emergency. Internet access (getting an IP address) is achievable via landline, ADSL, DSL, Fibre and wireless 2G and 3G access etc. Getting that IP address is what is important, whether you communicate via HTTP, VOIP, FTP, etc or the next layer above the protocol isn't really too important as long as the message recipient is up to speed on the preferred method of emergency message transmit. WAP email portals are also quite efficient for example.

What was quite shocking was that large parts of the East Coast of the USA lost not only Internet access via cable but also telephone landlines (ADSL) as well due to lack of battery or generator backup due to the inclement weather. Does you local post office still allow you to send a telegram?

Social networking will be around for long awhile, even if another corporation supersedes Facebook. Disregarding an obviously efficient means of communication is counterproductive and pointless.

Social networking sites aren't an efficient means of communication, they are much like email is now with Spam, you have to filter the dross to get at the small gems of useful information (assuming your Internet connection is still workable). IM in mostly unworkable, better to get on the telephone and speak to the person you want to communicate with or even walk the 20 feet across the office.

Where Internet access is bandwidth restricted such as in an emergency or places like Africa, it is even sometimes more efficient to burn a CD and post it at the local post office.

Fax Machines are quite efficient as well in band width limited areas such as land line only access.

Broadband Internet outages which have large geographical regions can be easily taken out. A large part of Southern England's Internet access (millions affected) went down for over 24hrs after some Router cards were simply just stolen in London's Docklands.

The Internet in the US can effectively be taken down by a dozen Spetznas shovel swings at the right place and time. I really wouldn't rely on the Internet for effective communications especially with the Internet Kill switch is implemented against those who post emergency messages online.

http://www.amfearliathmor.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Emergency_Message/ Er..just to state that this is a test of my emergency web page and is not real world.

Why is there the need for the constant up to the second need to be informed electronically about the news media distorted take on events and the second hand gossip?

Take for example the recent 'Storm of the Century' with the constant news media hysterical hyperbole and compare it to the tragic events of 1912..

[img]Pic nuked by Blast because it was too big[/img]

Check your sources. The Titanic was lost in April, 1912, not 1911.

Yes I just noticed after re reading the post and was about to edit it.

I disagree. Facebook saves me a lot of time communicating with family, friends and business associates.

How can you draw a conclusion like this if you don't even use them (per your own admission)?

Wasn't the internet designed originally so that if one node goes down, the other nodes still keep functioning? It was originally a military experiment to create a network that can withstand the disruption of a nuclear attack. So there is not central control at all. Right now there is no internet kill switch, and it doesn't sound like a technologically possible entity.

Now, stuff like Facebook and Twitter aren't designed that way, since there is a degree of central organization. But email will continue to work.

Da Bing

There is a reason why 50% of all UK businesses who have Internet Access ban Facebook access (and most of the other social network sites) because from an overall point of view, allowing access is a amazingly poor use of company time (man hours) and markedly affects productivity and can lead to some severe consequences for the economy. (Although in this case the issue was online Porn)

Gossip and efficient communications are not really the same thing.



That is correct but taking out one node (the analogy would be the LA highway system) and attempting to send all the LA traffic down a another node (the B955) is going to lead to some traffic jams.



This is easy. Session kill everyone and don't allow them back on to connect to the RAS or authentication server.

It can even be done remotely in the UK by having super user access to this website (will take out about 90% of end users in the UK)

www.btwholesale.com

You're right. Actually, the content (e.g., gossip, emergency info, news updates, or whatever) that is being communicated is irrelevant. The topic here is about systems for which to contact people. Facebook and Twitter are two such systems.

The problem again is that in an emergency situation (even without limited bandwidth and no Spetznas folks with their choppers) you have no control over the other 600 Million people who may want to access Farcebook to have a wee gossip about an impeding TEOTWAWKI event which they have just heard about.

The ability to post a message on a twitter page from an SMS is rather useful though if you are within cell service reach. A few postage stamps kept in the wallet along with some postcards isn't too much of a issue though. I should have thought about using them during Hurricane Irene when I was in Cuba though as the rest of the family back in the UK were racked with worry apparently due to the news media, after announcing that the Hurricane had shut down the 'happiest place on earth'.

Who was talking about "business use"? I don't think that had been mentioned until you brought it up.

Facebook is a multibillion dollar corporation yet the communications aspect of the website for the so called 'end users' is apparently free. From the business aspect of the Facebook, i.e. the business model, Facebook is a data mining and personal profiling operation which sells on your implied personal information to others. That is the basis for its income stream, although I'm still at a loss at the size of the market capitalisation for the company considering the limited value of the information it generates for purely 3rd party marketeers, which is why there is a suspicion that the News Onion Youtube video is nearer the mark than you would ever suspect.

Facebook et al are also treated by other businesses as a major security threat to their operations, such gathering insider information and industrial espionage.

As you may have guessed already I'm not a fan. What is quite shocking is also finding out about Mickey Mouse's operations also collecting biometric information from its customers. The All seeing eye it appears is almost everywhere.

There is an ongoing telephone and computer hacking scandal which has polluted the political process and even corrupted the police force at the highest levels in the UK. News international once owned Myspace. It would be interesting to know publicly if any Myspace account passwords were passed to the phone and computer hackers working for another subsidiary within the News Corporation media empire. It might have been a good idea to ensure that personal email and Myspace accounts had separate passwords when this criminality was taking place.

As there is no personal data protection legislation in the US this would be a moot point though as incorporated businesses it would appear don't have any morals when it comes to infringing on personal data protection of individuals.

In an emergency situation (e.g., stuck on a snowy mountain), I would prefer for my communications to have zero privacy. The needs of business are on the opposite end of the spectrum.

But are you really going to access your Facebook account and or start Twittering with your smart phone and hope that someone knows and or cares about your predicament or are you going to call the Emergency Services such as the Police, Mountain Rescue or Coast Guard? If battery power or cell service range is spotty then an SMS to your Twitter page might be worthwhile, but would you attempt to call the emergency services first and risk the last of the battery power on the phone?

Opening a browser page to login into the Facebook account on the phone will probably draw more power on the smartphone than making a voice call or sending an SMS.

The general rule stands: I'd prefer zero privacy in most emergency situations. You brought up business, but their needs run opposite to my needs in an emergency. Let's assume battery power is not an issue, that I've already contacted Mountain Rescue, and that I feel like I'm dying. So then, I have the opportunity to use email, text, Facebook, etc. Ideally, I'd prefer to have a live broadcast to the entire world if I could. Facebook and Twitter would be about the closest thing at that moment with my humble little smart phone. If you could present another system that comes closer, then I'm all ears, but I haven't heard anything that's much better.

Each to their own, I suppose, but there have been instances of something like this happening in a round about way. Not up the side of a snowy mountain side but in their own home.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...helped-her.html

Facebook friends indeed.

The world is a strange place also and folks can be quite unpredictable, I suspect some folks would get a little upset if broadcasting your own demise and the mountain rescue got there before you didn't pass away. They would have seen it all as being a little over dramatic if you survived unscathed and it probably doesn't do much for the WTL either at that point in time. It would probably be a better tactic to just record your last thoughts and goodbyes to real friends and family etc using the video camera on the smart phone to be found later when your body is recovered.

Using the phone texting system is quite tricky for me at the best of times as well, let alone whilst being half dead up the side of a mountain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGpVpsaItpU Even walking and texting can be a little tricky for some.

What does that have to do with the efficacy of Facebook and Twitter as a means of communication? Also, what does that have to do with I said? You're basically making up stuff and arguing with yourself.

The folks that run these types of businesses operate on the dark side. Some are worse than others but on the whole will cynically attempt to manipulate everyones psychology to make a buck. Thats my personal opinion I'm afraid.

Sorry If you think that I've read to much into what you said, sometimes written communication isn't as complete as a personal face to face or voice interaction. This is why sometimes we all have be careful about what is said using the written word. If I overstepped the mark with the previous reply then I apologise.

Might I suggest you try SKYPE then?

Ha, ha, ha!

I was just talking to a new nurse on our unit about the aftermath of Katrina (here in Baton Rouge).

I remember how many family members were desperately looking for each other and how many tearful reunions I watched. Facebook wouldn't have solved this but it would've been a very valuable tool for someone to put a post up "I'm here in Baton Rouge and I'm ok".

This creates of course a number of problems, (How do you get computer access in an emergency if you don't have an iphone, the "lost" individual being incapacitated and can't communicate with others, etc).

One never solves problems. One only trades off consequences.

I have an android phone and use an app that lets me make one post to multiple services. I write a quick post and it goes to facebook, twitter, google buzz, google lattitude, etc. I've tested it out when hiking where the cell signal was spotty, I make the post and hit send and stick the phone in my pocket and as I move around eventually the posts make it there.
So as I'm doing whatever I'm doing I just take a pic and make a post here and there and all my services get updated, multiple trails of bread crumbs.

Assuming you can find an appropriate Twitter feed, users can provide very specific info that you would never hear on the TV or radio because the info is just too specific for a general audience. Instead of a dozen reports in the field, you've got thousands of folks posting their observations in real time, although the signal-to-noise ratio can also be quite high so you have to be careful about what you believe.

Like with yesterday's San Diego blackout, a lot of people needed gas because they were running out due to the gridlock, but many stations were out of power. In my area, the power outages were here and there, so people might Tweet about stations that were still open. (Not that I recommend people read Twitter while they're driving. Duh.)

Come to think of it, can you imagine what commemorating 9/11 would be like if we had old Twitter feeds to dredge up for all these TV specials? Dozens of messages like, "I'm on floor 87. Flames down the hall. I'm trapped!" It's tough enough listening to 911 audio tapes.

Yesterday, NBC News' main Twitter account was hacked and several fake Tweets about planes crashing into Ground Zero went out. The same group takes responsibility for Fox News' hacked Twitter feed not long ago, too. So these Tweets went out to the public, apparently coming from a major news source.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the signal-to-noise ratio of Twitter. Unfortunately, deliberate disinformation is part of the noise, on top of gossip, speculation, and otherwise uninformative content.

Although usually just an annoyance to the public and an embarassment to the organization that was hacked, considering the rapidity with which information is distributed and re-distributed nowadays, even one ill timed fake message like this, from an apparently credible source, could rapidly take on a life of its own. A Tweet about a fake tsunami after some region suffers a strong earthquake, a Tweet during some civil disturbance that greatly inflames passions, a fake Tweet about a dam or levee breaking in the regions already on edge from flooding, the list goes on.

Although apparently only three NBC employees knew the password to the Twitter account, one was the victim of a phishing scam and he clicked on an attachment that he should've known better than to try and open.

So exactly how does twitter differ from any other news medium ?

...Good point. As usual, check your sources and confirm before acting on twits.

I think they would be potentially very valuable - but as others have said - it only works if you've got connectivity. Unless you've got some sort of satellite connection to the Internet, it may be of no value. It could potentially be helpful in the type of emergency where many people have been ordered to stay indoors (e.g. chemical release or dirty bomb attack). The media would be all over it. But if Tweets were noticed by the right EMS groups, it could give them very helpful info about what is actually happening.

I'd say the main problem is that vast numbers of users tend to trivialize these forms of communication. They Tweet endless gossip. So how would your sincere & desperate emergency message get noticed ... and who would DO something about it??

You could wind up as Robinson Crusoe on Twitter!
HahaHa!!!

Pete2

Thats easy,anyone who post gossip, negativity, etc just gets removed from my feeds. I've had a lot of people add me on various services only to get removed later because their posts were full of swearing or what beer they were going to drink tonight or what sports team was doing this or that or some 'famous' person said something. I just don't have the time for that so they get removed.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-201042.../?tag=cnetRiver

Looks like I'll have to pack me one of these facebooks they're talking about. Can I get it at Barnes & Noble? Hope I can catch it on discount.

Da Bing

Facebook was number 5 in the list

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siipB-1Zoac

Any way the full list



Strangely enough, clean underpants aren't listed by the Brits if the electric grid goes down.

Did anybody else get "Rick Rolled" Am_Fear style?

I have had even had to close my Youtube account (having nothing more to do with the Dark side) after the Youtube insistence that I create a Google account so I can log into my own Youtube account. I want nothing to do with Google operations either (another data mining and personal profiling operation esp if their useful search engine can be associated/linked to or with an email address and consequently an IP address and therefore a real world physical location) along with Facebook.

Remaining somewhat anonymous online is getting more and more difficult especially when these American Corporations continually try and associate their virtual space users and customers to a real world point of reference.

There are obviously ways and means around this but I don't want to forced to do this just to placate these corporate and US government data mining and personal profiling operations.

Total Information Awareness is it seems is getting out of hand.

TNSTAAFL
-Blast

It can be useful if the infrastructure is still up, and you're bugging in.

The opposite is also true, SDG&E's twitter post "If you have a personal family emergency plan, please activate it now" during last week’s power outage was on the far side of useless. An overloaded cell network, just like the last couple of emergencies, and no power meant little to no internet access.

For information dissemination to the general public, there's reverse 911, the "Emergency Broadcast System", and the emergency radio station that everybody is already monitoring.

For information to your friends/family, a SMS or phone tree is a much more reliable way of telling everybody where you are (e.g. Evac’d to Q stadium, section A7, pass it on)


If you're concerned about privacy on FB, just do what I do and keep your setting cranked up to the max. No email, no birthday, or any other identifying information is up there. Just a a profile picture, and nobody can access my wall unless I 'friend' them.

Here are the two shortest possible answers to your core questions, then I'll go into why Twitter and Facebook are important tools for emergency communications.

First, I'll answer your last question.

You can't use the internet without your real identity being discoverable. It's just a matter of the effort that needs to expended, and that ranges from "none" to "quite a bit" - but the end state is one where if you're using the internet, you can be connected to what you're using it for. Unless you were born in and lived in a tent your whole life, only ride a bike and pay only with cash, you have no possible way to avoid having your personal information recorded in a database somewhere that can be accessed by someone for some reason.

In terms of "what they are" -

Twitter is a service that gathers and distributes short messages using two communications infrastructures. The Short Message Service (SMS) global telecommunications infrastucture is one and the global Internet is the other. It is the use of the SMS infrastructure that gives Twitter an important capability: it reaches everywhere there is any level of mobile phone service, no internet connection required.

You do not need to join Twitter to get messages from Twitter users. To use it, all you need to do is text “follow [username]” to Twitter’s shortcode of 40404.

For example, you can follow the Los Angeles Fire Department if you send "follow lafd" to the number 40404. You do need to join the service in order to send messages.

While often derided as a tool that does little more than tell you what people you don't care about are having for lunch, in terms of emergency communications, it's quite powerful and useful. First of all, the very short messages (140 characters or less, due to limitations in the SMS infrastructure) make for concise communications. Secondly, the ability for people to immediately create ad-hoc "categories" via the use of a "hashtag" allows for a simple and effective way to distribute and gather information about an event or topic.

A hashtag is simply a word preceded by the "#" symbol, and included in the message. Thus, a fire in San Bernadino might be tagged with #sanbernadino and people posting messages about it would just start to include that hashtag. There's no central planning or coordination of hashtags, they just happen, and they work.

In my own experience, while on vacation recently, knowing that there was a risk of hurricane activity, I located the Delaware Office of Emergency Management on Twitter, and "followed" them. As a result, I was among the first to know that an evacuation order had been issued for my area. I was then able to monitor the hashtags #irene and #delawareshore for things like traffic reports.

As an Emergency Management Coordinator, I found that Twitter was a good way to monitor the overall level of impact of the storms and such that led to flooding and road closures and power failures - by searching for "Bucks County" and related terms, I was able to ascertain the scope and impact of road closures (lots) by people complaining on Twitter. Additionally, I used Twitter to connect with news media outlets by "mentioning" them in my messages from Emergency Management. That meant that people subscribing to new media twitter accounts also would see my messages from time to time.

Facebook is a service that people use to find and connect with people and companies that they interact with on a regular basis both in the real world and online only. People sign up for Facebook using their real names and real information, and then search the 500,000,000 Facebook user database to find and connect with people they know. Once connected, Facebook users can post messages, much like here on the ETS forums, but they can also easily post pictures (Facebook is the largest photo-sharing site on the planet), videos and more, all of which are shared with all or some of the people on their "friends" list.

The typical Facebook user has 140 "friends" - so, for example, when I post a message on my Facebook page, all 140 of my friends will see that message on their Facebook. The key thing to understand about this is that it is possible to very quickly propagate information to self-organizing communities of interest. What I share on my Facebook page reaches, at first, the friends on my list (assume 140) and in turn, depending on how my friends have set up their accounts and/or if they decide to leave their own facebook page viewable to some or all of their friends - or even the public at large - I can quickly reach 140x140 or so people (19,600) and so on (using the 140 people with 140 friends model for the math).

In the context of emergency management, Facebook offers a more "conversational" tone with the constituents of the community, and it also allows for the participation with field reports from the community.

For example, on the Bridgeton Township EMA page, as the incident progressed, we heard rumors of a dam break in the community across the river from us. One of our "fans" on the Facebook page posted a video from the scene.

See https://www.facebook.com/bridgetonema and scroll down a ways to see not only the video, but also photos of various flooding conditions.

These field reports not only helped me, they helped the community by giving them the access to the information that showed them exactly what was going on and where.

In addition, we were able to use the Facebook page to help people understand how to go directly to the right source for information, rather than just picking up on what they "heard" about a bridge or road closure.

In larger emergencies (including the Nuclear emergency in Fukashima) Facebook was the only communications tool that was able to provide us with "safe and well" information about a friend's son who lived not far from the nuclear plant. Like Twitter, Facebook has integration with both the internet and with mobile networks - it is possible to post a Facebook status message of "I am OK" via an SMS message to your own account.

In general, my opinion on communications tools in an emergency is "use everything you can". Our tiny community used Email, Web Sites, Facebook, Twitters, A Recorded message Hotline, SMS and Mass Media. In my opinion, the SMS and recorded message hotline were very important because the power was out, but the Facebook page was a close second.

Finally, the digital media agency where I work is currently in the process of creating new digital user experiences for the American Red Cross, and I had the privilege of being exposed to pertinent information about their efforts in social media - Facebook and Twitter included, of course, and I can confidently say that these tools are a valuable and important component of any emergency management mass communications plan.

I would be very happy to take anyone who wants on a tour of these tools, and I would encourage anyone with a mobile phone to at least consider using Twitter as a means of connecting with emergency agencies.

Thank you. That is a very informative and insightful post.

I have both a Facebook and Twitter account. I very rarely use Facebook, however I check Twitter almost daily. Twitter is also useful for traveling as here we have a lot of mountainous terrain and most radio station broadcasts do not travel far. On the otherhand, most major routes have cell/3G coverage and the same radio stations post weather and traffic reports on Twitter which on occassion have proven to be very useful. Also other drivers pick up on these reports and can provide much more timely and detailed updates which cannot be matched by any other traditional media outlets. I would suspect that in large scale disasters such as the recent hurricanes/tropical storms in the USA, Twitter and also Facebook was invaluable to many.

Most importantly - if you're using Twitter via SMS (text messaging) you will get information even in the lowest signal areas - places where you have "1 bar" signals or highly intermittent service/no service situations. The SMS network will retry messages and will get through when voice simply can't.

Facebook was a very useful tool during the flooding here in Brisbane earlier this year.

We mainly used it for updates from the emergency services. All websites seemed to be very slow due to the heavy additional loads on the servers as everyone tried to get information about flood levels / road closures etc. Facebook seemed unaffected and was running normally, so we could get trustworthy updates straight from the source without having to wait for the normal media outlets to broadcast (and in lots of cases add their spin).

Additionally, many people used it to broadcast help messages. For example, if someone's house was going under and they needed help finding emergency housing for their pets, they would broadcast their predicament and in return offers of help would come back. Special facebook pages were set up for people to post their needs in such a way. So if you have spare space and your house is high on a hill, you can post an offer of help and people can contact you directly.

We also used facebook to 'talk' to friends who were in danger of being flooded and needed to talk to someone to stay calm without blocking up their phone lines.

I don't use Facebook myself for social media but during an emergency its another really valuable communication tool which can also be a boredom / stress saver. A multi use tool :-)

One note: often the info is delivered faster, but it is just as often wrong. Check sources.

Our local Anchorage muni office of emergency management just posted this link on Facebook regarding "Survivors Search for Help Online Following Disasters, Analysis Finds".

One quote is "This analysis shows that contrary to what one might expect, the Internet has proven to be a resilient resource, providing information on recovery assistance as well as the condition of friends and family following a disaster."

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/safety/Surv...71326a6333c176a

From the website Emergency Management dot com.

My 3-year-old's preschool just sent home a notice this week; they will be using Twitter to communicate emergency school closings due to severe weather or other unplanned events. I have to admit, it will probably be much more effective than a phone tree. Not only will the message get out faster, even on a compromised mobile network, but the staff will be free to focus on the children rather than making phone calls.

Twitter is a wonderful, wonderful tool. I'd encourage you folks to at least give it a try.

Most of the local FD's, OEM's etc in my area use it.