Screen shot of one of the Google Maps created by online volunteers in response to Hurricane Gustav. Click on the image to see the live version of the map.
I've spent the last two years at NPR helping deploy blogs and social media tools. For an even longer time, about 15 years, I've worked in a wide range of online communities. I've lost track of all the groups I've joined - everything from discussions on computers in the classroom to expert strategies on how to brew beer at home. Above all, the online communities that make me most proud of the Internet are the ones that have sprung into action during times of crisis.
I got my first taste of online disaster response in 1995. Both the Kobe earthquake in Japan and the Oklahoma City bombing happened that year. In both cases, discussion groups that were previously used for other topics mobilized to share whatever information they could on charitable donations, giving blood and the like.
On the morning September 11, 2001, I launched the SEPT11INFO discussion forum, which was used to circulate news and dispel rumors in the chaotic hours following the attacks on New York and the Pentagon. During the tsunami of 2004, I joined a group of volunteers across South Asia to help produce the Southeast Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog, which became one of the Internet's main sources for on-the-ground information in the wake of the tsunami. And when Katrina devastated New Orleans, we sprang into action again by creating Katrina Aftermath, a blog that allowed anyone to share audio, photos and text about the hurricane, as well as a wiki for pulling together resources for people affected by the storm.
It's become almost a reflex. When disasters strike, I find some way of getting involved online. So last weekend, when it became apparent that Hurricane Gustav was making a beeline to New Orleans, I decided I had to help in some way.
Two nights before Gustav came ashore, I set up a social network called The Gustav Information Center. Unlike a blog, this social network would let people build out profiles about themselves where they could describe their areas of expertise, as well as publish content and create discussion forums. I then started posted out messages through my Twitter account, asking people to join me and help pull together resources about the hurricane.
By the time the hurricane came ashore that Monday, more than 500 people had signed onto the network to participate in some way or another. Teams of volunteers built Google Maps displaying evacuation routes and shelters while others created a wiki listing out of hundreds of resources related to the hurricane. Public broadcasting colleagues, like John Tynan of KJZZ Public Radio and Thomas Broadus of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, used Twitter to get out National Hurricane Center alerts and local emergency announcements. Other volunteers created mashups that allowed people to record voicemails and have them posted as podcasts, as well as transcribing ham radio traffic and making it available online.
Fortunately, Gustav wasn't the storm everyone feared it would be. But before we could step back and take a much-needed rest, we realized that two other storms, Hanna and Ike, were on their way. Hanna was going to head up the entire East Coast, which meant mobilizing even more volunteers to coordinate content production and data collection for a much larger geographic area. As I write this, Hanna is pounding away my neighborhood in Silver Spring, MD, but we still managed to roll out a number of resources for people caught in the storm. We even changed the name of our social network to The Hurricane Information Center to accommodate volunteer activities for the rest of the hurricane season.
Hanna will soon be gone, but Ike is making a beeline to the Florida Keys and the Gulf of Mexico. It's too early to tell if it will affect the Gulf Coast yet, but we're mobilizing resources and volunteers just in case. If you have any technical skills like Google Map production or are handy at mining websites for information, we'd love to have you join us.
Though only three years have passed since Katrina, that's a lifetime in Internet terms. Back then, we didn't have YouTube, Facebook or Twitter. We also didn't have free do-it-yourself social networking tools like Ning.com. Volunteering during times of natural disasters isn't just for people with backgrounds in first-reponse, like EMS or Red Cross volunteers. There's plenty of work to be done by online volunteers as well. -andy
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