When Hurricane Sandy pounded the northeastern coast of the United States this week, millions of Americans feeling the brunt of the storm turned to social media as a lifeline to find out the latest news, report damage, and even solicit help.
“The rise of social media is giving users more information and points of view than television news, where Americans have typically turned during such events”, said Charlene Li, an analyst for the research firm Altimeter Group in an interview with Bloomberg News.
Government agencies once wary of social media have now embraced it, including the New York City Mayor’s office and the New York Fire Department (FDNY), which sent out social media updates throughout the storm, and in some cases dispatched rescue workers to assist those who were trapped.
Emily Rahimi, a seven-year veteran of the FDNY, was the one-woman rapid response team behind the department’s Twitter feed. For hours, Rahimi sent and responded to hundreds of tweets, keeping followers updated on the storm and facilitating requests for help sent out via the social media service.
"I was just tweeting to people who were not able to get through to 911," Rahimi told Yahoo News, and as 911 became inundated with calls, more and more users turned to Twitter for assistance.
“I need to find a fridge for these buddies. Anyone?” tweeted one user with a photo of medication that needed to be refrigerated.
Others sent the addresses of family and friends who were trapped or missing.
“As the storm bore down, Twitter got busy and very, very serious,” said David Carr, media reporter for the New York Times. Carr said during the storm, tweets morphed from their usual snarky tone to a real-time source of useful information.
“Twitter not only keeps you in the data stream, but because you can contribute and retweet, you feel as if you are adding something even though Mother Nature clearly has the upper hand,” Carr wrote in his column Wednesday.
Facebook also served as a conduit of information for people hoping to get updates on how family and friends fared in the storm’s path.
According to Facebook’s “Talk Meter,” which measures chatter regarding specific topics, Hurricane Sandy was the second most talked about event in the US this year, with only the American football championship Super Bowl game ranking higher on the list.
Some of the most talked about terms on Facebook included, “we are OK,” “power” and “damage” the company said.
Social media photo sharing website Instagram was also buzzing with snapshots of submerged cars, and storm ravaged neighborhoods at a rate of ten pictures per second, according to the non-profit journalism school Poynter.
But when it comes to social media, false information also spreads quickly, as was the case Monday evening during the height of the storm.
“BREAKING: Confirmed flooding on NYSE [New York Stock Exchange]. The trading floor is flooded under more than 3 feet of water,” read one tweet that was quickly passed along on the site.
The report gained so much traction it even became a story on US television, as CNN and The Weather Channel did reports on the flooded stock exchange, which later turned out to be completely false.
