Emergency Social Data Summit

This is the first in a series of posts which will frame the agenda for discussing the future of a social data response to disaster at a summit in Washington D.C, on August 12, 2010.

Social media and social technologies have altered communication patterns, particularly in times of disaster. The public has begun to rely on social media to share information during emergencies with family, friends and increasingly, with government and aid organizations who maintain social networking profiles. This has created an unexpected side effect—in which responding authorities and aid organizations are expected to be aware of and respond to emergency requests for help coming from such sources as Facebook, Twitter, and text messages. Additionally, there is a growing network of independent citizens who want to assist in  times of emergency, and they are using social media tools to organize and deliver aid.

The social web is creating a fundamental shift in disaster response that is asking emergency managers, government agencies, and aid organizations to mix their time-honored expertise with real-time input from the public. As of today, most of us are not yet ready to collect, respond or react to this incoming social data in a timely manner. The use of publicly available data in times or places of crisis raises issues of authenticity, privacy, veracity and ownership.  Responding to this challenge requires the collective input of government agencies, first responders, technology companies, public safety officials and the general public. Creating a process and system of response for this data is crucial for one compelling reason: we are seeing more and more headlines in which people have turned to social media channels as their first choice of communication during a crisis and we, as a response and aid community, must get ahead of this trend to remain effective.

 Here are just a few examples of how this trend is playing out in the real world.

“Girls trapped in storm drain use Facebook to call for help…instead of calling emergency services.” This story from a 2009 UK newspaper, recounts the story of two Australian girls, aged 10 and 12, who updated their Facebook status as a cry for help when they found themselves in a precarious situation.  Luckily for them, a schoolmate saw the status update and summoned aid. 

Another example came when an Atlanta city councilman who encountered a woman in trouble on the street in 2009; because his cell phone battery was low, he turned to Twitter. “Need a paramedic on corner of John Wesley Dobbs and Jackson St. Woman on the ground unconscious. Pls ReTweet.” His actions are believed to have saved her life.

The frequency of stories like this accelerated into a virtual downpour after a devastating earthquake rocked Haiti in January, 2010.  A Canadian woman trapped in rubble after the quake, was rescued after her text message for help reached Canada’s Foreign Affairs Department and was relayed back to Canadian authorities on the ground.  The Canadian Foreign Affairs minister in his daily briefings told reporters “we know where this woman is, exactly.”

 The challenge of a rescue effort in such a poor country, combined with its geographic challenges, unfolded in the media in dramatic stories of success and failure. Not all the cries for help from social media channels had happy endings. Regine Madhere, a 27-year-old Haitian woman who was trapped in the rubble of the Port au Prince supermarket in which she worked, sent a text message to her cousin in France because she believed she heard rescue workers leaving the area.  The cousin then sent a tweet to the Red Cross Twitter account asking for help.

News organizations reported that multiple rescue workers from several countries worked round-the-clock for days to free Madhere and others, whose families kept vigil near the site. While a number of people were rescued from under the supermarket rubble, Madhere died before she, and many others, could be found.  (Related story.)

These stories carry a common thread:  a person in trouble turns to what they believe is the quickest way to get help. In these cases, and many more, they turned to their preferred new media tool.

This same social media technology has spawned numerous volunteer efforts in times of emergency, many of which have been instrumental in adding vital -- and accurate – information used to positive effect by first responders and decision makers. Beginning as early as September, 2001, Andy Carvin, senior social strategist at National Public Radio (NPR), put together a Yahoo Group within hours after the September 11 tragedy called “SEPT11INFO” and used volunteers spread throughout the city to make sense of rapidly changing information on threats, road conditions and personal safety. (Interview, July 22, 2010)

Another effort involved a team at Google, who coded a solution now called “Google Person Finder” in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, which was quickly coded, launched and operational.  Today’s technology offers endless possibilities and opportunities to aggregate data never before envisioned by our society.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how social data affects societal expectation of aid and its impact on emergency response, explore current technologies and individuals who have made successful inroads in recent disasters, develop a plan to address this across the emergency spectrum, and create awareness of the cultural shift that is influencing all areas of disaster response today.