It’s working: Social media and disaster response in Haiti

A few days ago I posted on the incredible work being done by Patrick Meier and his team to leverage social media to direct the humanitarian response to the Haitian earthquake.  A few days in, evidence is accumulating that this approach is working.

Take, for example, this one particular case.  A worker at “God’s Littlest Angel Orphanage” was able to send out a distress call for water via Twitter.  This call was picked up by Patrick’s team and embedded into the crisis map.  Less than a day later, an individual associated with an NGO called World Water Relief saw the request on the crisis map website and, as of last report, is currently working to direct water supplies and solar powered filtration units to the orphanage.

It is not at all clear that this type of coordination would be taking place in the absence of this interactive crisis mapping work.  The key points to recognize in this particular case are, first, that the organization in need of help apparently did not know who could provide the help and, second,  the organization with the water didn’t know who needed it most.  By establishing an interactive clearinghouse for the sharing of this information, the Haiti crisis map performed a valuable service.  Clearly, social media-fueled crisis response tools are a powerful supplement to the more traditional coordinating mechanisms of disaster response.

UPDATE:  Ushahidi’s twitter feed is now indicating that US Government agencies and units involved in the disaster response effort in Haiti, including FEMA and even the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, are also actively using the data collected by Patrick and his team.

Social media and disaster response in Haiti

Although the precise scale of the disaster in Haiti remains unclear, the human toll appears immense.  The already-feeble Haitian Government was utterly destroyed by the ferocity of the earthquake leaving ordinary Haitians to rely primarily on international responders.  Unfortunately, these responders are struggling with both logistical and informational challenges that are, quite literally, costing lives.

In a very preliminary sense, however, social media is starting to address the informational needs of rescuers.  Patrick Meier, a fellow PhD student at the Fletcher School, is aggregating and synthesizing information from both traditional and new media (to include Twitter, text messages, etc.).  The crisis map he and his team have created through the auspices of the Ushahidi organization  is evidently already being used by rescuers and others in Haiti to direct the response.  An interview with Patrick is available here.