It’s summer, and that means we may be in for another round of freaky weather extremes. Hopefully that won’t include the city of Joplin, Missouri, which was hit by an extremely powerful tornado a little more than a year ago, on May 22, 2011. Natural disasters test us, and while the personal and financial losses may be severe, in the aftermath communities often discover hidden resources that enable them to rally and emerge stronger.
In an age of ubiquitous social media then, it isn’t surprising then that less than two hours after Joplin was hit, killing 160 people and destroying more than 7,000 homes, volunteers created the Joplin Tornado Info website and Facebook pages and started collecting and sharing information to help the recovery effort. These sites rapidly grew into vital hubs for critical real-time updates and ongoing coordination of relief efforts, and show in all kinds of important ways how being networked is changing how local governments, private agencies and concerned individuals can all work together to rebuild damaged places and lives.
This Thursday at 1pm ET, on the Personal Democracy Plus conference call, we’ll be looking closely at how social media can help in disaster recovery with two people who lived through the Joplin experience, Genevieve Williams and David Burton, two of the key volunteers who worked on JTI, and who have written (with Rebecca Williams) a valuable in-depth guide called “The Use of Social Media for Disaster Recovery.”
Whether you’re a local official looking to understand how to plan ahead for a potential disaster, a relief worker in the middle of one, or a concerned citizen whose been through such an experience or wants to be ready to help if one happens nearby, this should be a fascinating conversation to join. RSVP here.
Check out our upcoming calls with Baratunde Thurston and Andrew Slack.
June 26, 2012