Presentation Slides from ISCRAM 2014 for the paper Social Media for the Emergency Manager in Disaster Planning and Response by Nick Giacobe and Pam Soule

1. Social Media for the Emergency Manager in
Disaster Planning and Response
Nicklaus A. Giacobe
Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology
Pamela J. Soule
Penn State Office of Emergency Management
1
College of Information Sciences & Technology
Ist.psu.edu

2. The Local Level EM
Local Emergency Manager (EM)
Perspective
– Different than national, state or large
municipality EM
– Smaller Scale
– Little or No resources (manpower, $)
– Need to leverage “Force Multipliers” maybe
through social media
College of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu2

3. Direction from FEMA
IS-42 Social Media in
Emergency Management
– Shows some of the
promise of social media
successes
– Shows basics of what
social media is
– No guidance or starting
place for how to develop
a social media presence
– No staffing
recommendationsCollege of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu3

4. Six Potential Use Cases
1. Best practices for general social media use by EMs
2. Social media use for internal command and control
within the EM group
3. Developing situation awareness by monitoring social
media, especially prior to predicable events
4. Communicating disaster preparedness messages
through social media
5. Using social media for gathering damage assessment
information during, or immediately following a crisis
6. Leveraging social media-connected volunteer groups
College of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu4

5. “BEST PRACTICES”
Develop and Communicate
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6. “Best Practices”
Need for clear steps or processes that a
local level EM can follow
– Figure out which SM is used in the community
– Developing audience
– Finding and engaging re-broadcasters
– Response Agency use vs. 911 Center vs. EM
use of social media
– Social Media message creation
College of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu6

7. COMMAND AND CONTROL
(C2)
Social media-driven
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8. Social Media C2
How can the EM Leverage social media
internally for C2 ?
– Single person – uses resources from other
agencies
– EOC Activation – SMS / voice pager / radio
phone list / carrier pigeon?
– Partial EOC Activation and continuous 24 hr
opns
College of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu8

9. SITUATION AWARENESS
Monitoring social media to develop
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ist.psu.edu9

10. Situation Awareness
• Can we use Social Media to monitor
what’s going on in a community?
– “Did you feel that?” tweet = earthquake
– Disaster evacuation compliance
– Riots, protests and
large-scale gatherings
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ist.psu.edu10

11. DISASTER PREPAREDNESS
MESSAGES
Using social media to distribute
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12. Disaster Prep. Messages
Disaster Prep messages are often boring…
– What is the right platform?
– What is the right message to communicate?
– How often?
– How early (or late) compared to pending crisis
– Specific – local context – actionable –
spammed at the right time
College of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu12

13. DAMAGE ASSESSMENT
Leveraging social media technologies to assist with
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14. Damage Assessment
Damage assessment is low-tech and manpower
intensive
– Required for immediate response
– Required for aid
How can we leverage technologies and volunteers
to make this faster/easier?
– Flyover geo-tagged images – but how to assess?
– Drive-by pictures and videos
– Crowdsourced picture submission
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ist.psu.edu14

15. VOLUNTEER GROUPS
Leveraging social media-connected
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16. Leveraging Volunteer Groups
• How does a local level EM activate a
Crisis Camp?
• Where can a local level EM find a
competent GIS professional to help out for
a few days or weeks?
• Are there local volunteer groups who can
manage technology on behalf of the EM
and not mess everything up?
College of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu16

17. CONCLUSION
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18. Recall: Six Potential Use Cases
1. Best practices for general social media
use by EMs
2. Social media use for internal command
and control within the EM group
3. Developing situation awareness by
monitoring social media, especially prior
to predicable events
4. Communicating disaster preparedness
messages through social media
5. Using social media for gathering damage
assessment information during, or
immediately following a crisis
6. Leveraging social media-connected
volunteer groups
College of Information Sciences & Technology
ist.psu.edu18