Social Media in Emergency Management (Hurricane Sandy)

The following case study describes the strategic disaster recovery measures that were implemented during Hurricane Sandy, a catastrophic event that occurred in the USA and parts of Canada in 2012, segregated along the four main dimensions – People, Governance, Technology and Implementation – of the Social Media Emergency Management (SMEM) maturity model.

The hurricane that caused the most damage during the Atlantic Hurricane season of 2012, Sandy wreaked havoc in many states along the eastern coast of the USA and parts of Canada after making landfall close to Kingston, along south east Jamaica. New Jersey and New York were amongst the most badly hit cities. Torrential downpours and intense air currents ravaged through thousands of residential areas. Streets, tunnels and underground pathways were submerged under water. Power outages were widespread in urban zones. 21 people in Staten Island in New York lost their lives. The death toll reached a total of 147 in the USA. The monetary value of damages and losses due to the catastrophe were approximated at a colossal $50 billion.

While the sudden occurrence of earthquakes at Haiti and Christchurch didn’t leave the local residents much time to prepare for disaster recovery, the inhabitants in all the regions that fell along Hurricane Sandy’s projected path were alerted well ahead of time by local weather departments of the approaching storm. News channels on TV and radio were abuzz with red alerts the entire week prior to Sandy’s landfall. The then US president, Barack Obama declared emergency in many states for the 28th of October as air currents intensified severely after briefly slackening down. FEMA kept a tight watch as Sandy drew closer and grew in momentum while simultaneously deploying disaster recovery preparedness and response plans in coordination with their regional associates.

Individuals across interest groups – government agencies, NGOs, business organizations, volunteer associations and general public – used social media extensively before, during and after the event occurred.

Local citizens used online platforms to:

Disaster recovery teams were constantly monitoring the vast traffic of online information. Although official disaster recovery squads could not adequately verify all the data being transmitted through digital channels, the information shared did provide insights on trends and patterns. Many impacted people who had suffered losses and damage during the storm found it useful while trying to source and locate essential needs such as: fuel, comestibles and safety zones.

Some seasoned virtual volunteer associations augmented the collective response in the digital space by collating critical information – facts, figures and suggestions – from a variety of sources and uploading them in a common path. Many volunteer associations even helped in validating some of the data that was being shared.

The impact Hurricane Sandy was having on the lives of Americans generated record breaking levels of internet traffic on social media platforms. The statistics even surprised official bodies like FEMA and New York City who have a wide and extensive presence in the digital arena.

Official disaster recovery squads and volunteer groups liaised extensively on a variety of tasks such as collating, validating, exchanging, mapping and uploading information.

There were instances when volunteer groups and official squads were collaborating with each other for the first time. Coordination and synchronization of these efforts without any past reference of the other group’s working culture posed a few challenges.

The American government had been emphasizing on the correct utilization of online platforms in disaster recovery for over two years when Hurricane Sandy occurred. The US Department of Homeland Security had put together a panel of industry experts with diverse profiles who hailed from different backgrounds such as government agencies, emergency response squads, volunteer association and intellectuals. The objective was to help the emergency management fraternity assimilate time tested social media strategies that are specific to the various stages of a crisis situation (before, during and after) and can be employed in live scenarios.

The result findings and conclusions were archived and shared through various publications. These printed editions outlined a broad framework for engineering social media capabilities, the mechanisms required, along with strategies for developing policies and procedures for the digital arena. A Social Media Emergency Protocol was also introduced in 2011 that encouraged NYC personnel to constantly engage with the city’s civilian population through online platforms. By the time Sandy struck in 2012, the initiative kick started a year earlier was a well oiled machinery that fostered a substantial amount of synergy between NYC’s official community, Samaritans in the digital space and the general public. The result was a seamless collaboration between the three groups during the implementation of preventive, response, rescue and recovery measures.

FEMA also chipped in with mission critical crowd-sourced solutions for the same. Their ‘Innovation Team’ – an eclectic group of specialized professional from various industries and sectors – participated both remotely as well as on the field. Their activities included:

Extensive disaster recovery support from volunteers greatly increased the staff strength in FEMA’s regional offices. These volunteers provided efficient interfacing between official teams and amateur groups. For example, before conducting sanitizing activities at residences, volunteer groups would make sure that public authorities had disposed off any hazardous wastes in the area that could lead to health and toxicity issues.

The Innovation Team proved to be an exemplary display of crisis time governance. However, there were some operational challenges that were identified and analyzed later in retrospect, including:

Cell phone and web based connectivity was severely hit as a result of power failures and inundations. An operational communications infrastructure during emergencies was imperative in order to effectively engage in rescue and recovery measures. Ensuring that these services were up and running as soon as possible became top priority. Innovative mesh network strategies quickly brought back and even extended cell phone connectivity. This was a joint effort in which FEMA’s Innovation Team and volunteering squads participated together. FEMA also collaborated with many privately held enterprises to create dedicated communication squads to bring back mission critical infrastructure. This activity included providing Emergency Management (EM) teams with the necessary communication equipment.

Besides centralized web portals, disaster recovery squads made extensive use of the capabilities of platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. The word ‘FEMA’ was mentioned online more than 5800 times every hour on Twitter. As a consequence of constant re-tweets, the number of FEMA users on Twitter crossed six million on October 29th. FEMA also put in place an online page dedicated to mitigating the spread of inaccurate information, especially through social platforms.

The digital space volunteering community used a variety of free and open source software for activities such as:

Additionally, FEMA used a WordPress page for:

Many groups of volunteers worked collectively to geo-tag the data populated on online platforms. This activity was particularly helpful in updating maps with the latest facts and displaying important information such as:

This was a collaborative effort achieved by crowd sourcing information both remotely as well as from the field.

Official agencies in NYC had the necessary tools, knowledge base, skills, expertise and experience to confront a catastrophe of the scale and proportions of Hurricane Sandy. For over two years, the city had supported a policy to cultivate a strong presence in the digital space that gave disaster recovery personnel ample time to foster healthy relationships and create a sense of trust with the general public. NYC had also established strong ties with volunteer associations. All parties concerned were well acquainted with the relevant blueprints for action when disaster struck, which included sufficient buffer space for improvisation in the event of unforeseen complications and setbacks. Moreover, these improvised plans could be developed collaboratively by involving personnel from various focus groups.

Extensive training programs and certification for volunteers in digital strategies also helped in ensuring crisis response solutions of a certain standard. Virtual volunteers played a crucial role in supplying official teams with statements and situational reports, as well as filtering out the headlines from the vast morass of online traffic.

Once again, as in the case of the Christchurch earthquake, the relevant training and knowledge transfer required for effectively engaging in EM solutions through social media was identified as a critical area for improvement. Another challenge was integrating social media with incident command structure and emergency operations center protocols.