Through a spate of storms last year that flooded homes and knocked out power to wide swaths of the region, Hunterdon County’s social media accounts buzzed.

Its Facebook page told viewers how to report power outages and where to get showers and shelter. Its Twitter page steered viewers to websites with more information.

While it sounds counterintuitive to send emergency alerts through outlets that need electricity that might be knocked out, emergency management offices are increasingly using social media to let people know about crises big and small.

Read more @ www.lehighvalleylive.com

From Adam Crowe @ the Disasters 2.0 Blog

Emergency and disaster management is a complex process that is filled with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of moving parts that require a delicate balance.  Various functions such as operations, planning, communications, media management, public assistance, damage assessment, and debris management are examples of activities that must happen in concert and collaboration to ensure an efficient and effective response and recovery effort.

Occasionally, significant new tools are introduced to this process that often create dissension among practitioners at various levels.  The rise and impact of social media is one such example.  Emergency management practitioners at all levels — both public and private — are struggling to understand the basic concepts and the implementation strategies that will benefit their organization and/or community.

Read more @ emergencymgt.com

From Kim Stephens @ the  iDisaster 2.0 Blog

I’m fortunate to be working with a group of #SMEM*  friends who like to help each other during disasters. We train on real disasters as well as live non-disaster events, such as conferences and fast-moving popular events, so that we can test new social media tools and techniques. We do this to learn for our own varied emergency needs, and to share what we learn with others in order to contribute to the development of social media disaster operations in all phases of disasters. We call ourselves the “Virtual Operations Support Team“, or VOST for those who prefer acronyms.**

Read more @ iDisaster 2.0

From Kim Stephens @ iDisaster 2.0

Alice Johnson of Zawya.com recently posted an interview with retired Admiral Thad Allen about disaster response. She uses a quote from his as the title or her article: “It’s a leadership challenge, it’s a legal challenge, it’s a policy challenge, it’s a resource challenge”. Most readers will remember him for his role in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as the Principal Federal Official, he’s now a VP at a consulting firm. I have pulled out the section of the interview where she asks him about emerging technologies, and he specifically addresses the role of social media. I love his answer to the question about what government thinks about this new environment we live in. He basically says it doesn’t matter what government thinks,  people will use social media to report what’s happening to them in a disaster (and “participate in these events”) whether we like it or not. Love it!

Read more