1) The document discusses using Twitter data to analyze the heavy storm that hit the Pukkelpop music festival in Belgium in 2011. It presents analysis of tweets during and after the storm to gain insights into early warnings, damage reports, and community resilience. 2) Key findings include early warnings of the incoming storm 25 minutes before impact, tweets showing damage photos that spread rapidly when posted by trusted sources, and the spontaneous emergence of hashtags like #Hasselthelpt to coordinate relief efforts. 3) Future work could focus on improving methods to verify damage and casualty reports in real-time, assessing credibility of information sources, and developing tools for crisis managers to monitor and respond using social media data.

1. SLIDESLIDE
>WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM
Towards realtime Twitter analysis
ISCRAM 2012
23 april 2012
Arnout de Vries (TNO), Teun Terpstra (HKV), Geerte Paradies (TNO), Richard Stronkman (Twitcident)

2. Social sensors and citizen journalism
1 minute ago
Analysis (Pukkelpop) and research method (Twitcident)
5 minutes ago
Results: early warning, facts and feelings, resilience
10 minutes ago
20 minutes ago
Goal: “Monitor and analyze Twitter during incidents in
real-time to improve crisis management”
15 minutes ago
Discussion and future work

3. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
10 januari 2011
M Bouman
TNO Nieuwe huisstijl
3

4. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Social media & emergency management
4
Red river floods

6. 6
Pukkelpop
Storm incident 2011
August 18th 2011, 6.15 PM

7. 7
Finding and filtering: keywords,
syntactical, context and
semantic features. More info:

8. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter visual analysis
Tweets /min
156.157 tweets total in 2 days
8
576 tweets/min

9. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter visual analysis
Tweets /minSelection of 96.957 tweets between noon and midnight
9
12 AM 12 PM

10. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Geographical spread of Tweets
Total spread afterwards:
10

11. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter: filter messages
Messages about
(rumours on)
casualties and deaths
1. Early warning
2. Damage and casualties
3. ‘Community resilience’
‘Dangerous weather’
messages as early
indicators
People offering help in
various ways (e.g.
twitterlists)
11

12. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Early warnings?
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM 12
Words used 25 minutes before impact
1. Weather: storm, thunder, cloud bursts, hail, ….
2. Locations: Brussel, Gent, Hasselt, …
3. Severity: intense, enormous, drama, ‘hell’, !…
Impact
stormIndication?
“ ”

13. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter: early warning
1. Early warning
I pity those on #pukkelpop ! It was pitch dark
here for over 15 minutes! And hail storm,
lightning, thunder, …OMG!
13

14. 14
Damage: photo’s from eye witnesses

15. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter: damage & casualties
2. Damage and casualties
SMS from the Standard: according to fireman of
Sint-Truiden 6 deaths on #pp11 because of storm
#shitman
15
• Retweets expressing doubts
• Some messages reach 10k
users in 3 minutes
• Hyperlinks (news or photo
websites) high propagation

16. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter: community resilience
3. ‘Community resilience’
#Hasselthelpt 2 beds, shower and breakfast,
ask @Daffybal - pick up at church possible, we
live behind the festival grounds
16
• #Hasselthelpt, #Genthelpt, #Brusselhelpt, …
• Creation of Twitterlists (e.g. PatriceF)
• Sharing of phone numbers
• Creation of Twitter accounts

17. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Festival goers were taken by surprise, so it seems. But (weak) signals
were there.
Retweets accounted for large amounts of tweets on damage and
casualties and only occurred when pictures (in case of damage) or links
to official news sites (i case of casualties) were available. This suggests
social norms on twitter prevent propagation of unverified information
about delicate topics.
Solidarity is important in coping with disasters (Starbird et al). Within 2
hours the #hasselthelpt initiative was followed massively. This suggests
social media can facilitate community resilience that originate from
nearby people.
Twitter monitoring could enable crisis managers to confirm or refute
rumors and take emotional responses into account in crisis
communications.
Discussion
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM 17

18. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Early detection and early warning:
Examples: Queensday, (death) threats and weather conditions
Filters for damage and casualties need to be verified for other
incidents. New topic filters such as resilience need more research.
Retweets and source credibility are indeed related. Images and
links, besides the author, play an important role in assessing
credibility.
Indicators for assessing real-time credibility seem possible
and are valuable for crisis response teams.
Future research
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM 18

19. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Visual analysis provide a good start to identify abnormalities
Filtering on damage could have provided pictorial 'evidence'
# of retweets attract attention and point toward a hot topic from a
'trusted' source, and news about damage or casualties mostly have
high propagation
Not just about technology: organizational solutions needed for
embedding social media usage in crisis communications, such as
more experience, knowledge and policies.
Implications for crisis management
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM 19

20. Questions? #daretoask

21. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Thank you!
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM 21
Demonstration:
TUESDAY afternoon
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
at Concourse level

22. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
TIMELINE
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM 22
August 19thAugust 18th 2011
Indications of
heaviness of
storm
heading to
Pukkelpop
from citizens
Start incident:
heavy rainfall
16:22
18:15
Reports
about
deaths
19:03
Reports
about
damage
and
casualties
18:30
First relevant
pictures showing
damage (collapse
of tent)
18:35
First pictures
showing panic
Dutch press
starts
reporting
18:24
19:19
Belgian press
started reporting
(individual
accounts)
19:12
Large amounts of
rumour spread about
#deaths
19:15
Deaths semi-
confirmed by
individual
journalist
19:38
20:19
Initiation of
#Hasselthelpt
@Pukkelpop
first message
since incident
19:53
@Pukkelpop
message with
“
handelingsper
spectief”
(phone
number and
URL)
21:56
Press
conference
(TV): 2 deaths
and 40 injured
20:50
Announcement
that festival is
cancelled for the
night
19:40
Fire depts Sint
Truiden say 6
deaths and
Hasselt says 1
death 7 injured
20:06
GSM network
is fixed
“SMS use
only” is asked
for
~21:00
Official news:
5 deaths, tens
injured,
festival
cancelled
19thaug12:00AM

23. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter: damage & casualties
Tweets/min on ‘Damage’ topic Tweets/min on 'Casualty' topic
23
News media
rumors

24. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Pukkelpop Twitter visual analysis
Tweets /minOf which 94.109 were created from the start of the disaster (6:15 PM)
24

25. SLIDESLIDESLIDE
Flood control 2015 programme:
Stimulates the development of (IT) innovations in order to
promote smarter protection against floods and other water related
hazards.
Social media and crisis management project
Gathering information from technical sensors
e.g. weather, dikes, waterlevels
-> But also from the HUMAN sensor
which information could humans provide?
Flood control 2015
WWW.FLOODCONTROL2015.COM 25