The Evolving Nature of Disaster Management in the Internet and Social Media Era

Traditional means for contacting emergency responders depend critically on the availability of the 911 service to request help. Large-scale natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes often result in overloading and sometimes failure of communication facilities. Affected citizens are increasingly using social media to obtain and disseminate information. Social media is not only being used to communicate with first responders but also for people to organically volunteer and seek help from each other, complementing the role of first responders. In this paper, we examine the use of Twitter during two major hurricanes in the U.S. in 2017. We find that there exists a sizable number of people with access to the Internet even in areas where 911 services were down, and they tweet disaster-related information including requests for help. Our analysis indicates that social media can potentially help in disaster management and improve outcomes.