Denise Abreu-Alvarez's List: Activity 3.6 Digital Citizenship

• 6 Digital Tools to Track Hurricane Sandy
• Weather Channel YouTube Livestream
• he Weather Channel has made its hurricane coverage available streaming live on YouTube.
• YouTube is promoting the feed at the top of its homepage—and it appears to be quite popular, with more than 55,000 people watching at almost noon.
• Google's Crisis Map
• Google's interactive map may be one of the best tools around for those in the direct path of this storm.
• Updated in real-time, this crisis map overlays evacuation routes with a weather radar, current and projected forecasts, emergency shelter locations, as well as information about flood surges.
• Hint.fm's Wind Map
• While this map is not directly associated with any government agency, Hint.fm's wind map is a gorgeous tool for watching surface winds in near-real time.
• New York Times Rooftop Webcam
• Situated 50 some stories above the New York Times newsroom, this high-definition camera updates every minute,
• t's also the perfect tool for New Yorkers without access to a window view to survey the deteriorating conditions.
• Instagram
• As has been the case throughout breaking news events in 2012, Instagram is an excellent near-real-time way to see on-the-ground pictures of Sandy.
• Popular hashtags are #sandy, #frankenstorm, and #Instacane.
• For breaking news junkies, these photo-sharing sites could be the quickest way to get access to the tens of thousands of pictures being generated by those in the path of the storm.
• Twitter
• Sites like the Huffington Post have put together handy "Who to Follow" lists for the Hurricane.
• Government and local crisis and disaster organizations will be tweeting out helpful storm information and meteorologists and citizens on the ground will be updating with dispatches from hard-hit areas.

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• Hurricane Sandy Gas Station Crisis Sees Solution From New Jersey High School Students
• reas affected by Superstorm Sandy have been struggling to find gas stations still open with resources. But one group of high school students in New Jersey have -- overnight -- devised a solution.
• Members of IMSOCIO at Franklin High School gathered Wednesday night to launch a crowdsourced map that locates open gas stations in the New York-New Jersey area. Stations are identified by green, red or yellow pins -- each representing an open, sold out or charging station.
• The map has now identified nearly 100 stations in the area, and has garnered attention from local news stations -- so much so that the site crashed for a few hours Thursday afternoon due to high traffic.
• "I'm a bit shocked, I didn't think it'd be such a big hit," Bustamante told The Huffington Post Thursday afternoon. "We started this up last night, we just wanted to help. It was a small idea, I personally needed gas, we all needed gas. So we started out with five points and just had more friends and high school students get involved."
• "This is a service learning project, by using community mapping students can use technology to serve the community,"
• "I think one of the good things is the kids got really excited, they realized they can make these changes in the community," Im said. "The students got encouraged and hopefully as people find out about this we can do this kind of project all over the country."

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• Friday Five: Digital Communications Lessons from Hurricane Sandy
• Super-Frankenstorm Sandy descended on the northeastern U.S., causing widespread damage, halting transportation and testing the communication strategies of numerous organizations. As the recovery got its footing, we could already glean lessons on how to use digital communication channels effectively in extreme situations, and what never to do during an emergency.
• The Huffington Post’s “writers and editors relied on Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter to post stories and information during the storm.” BuzzFeed, too, used the same social platforms to relay news, and quickly switched to a cloud server in what Wired claimed “may be the quickest cloud conversion in history.”
• All three sites showed dedication to getting news out by any means available, and were transparent about how they did so.
• Both The New York Times and Airbnb understood their services could significantly help those in need, and then made helping out their priority.
• The greatest digital communication lesson learned from Hurricane Sandy is that during a crisis, one should pay attention and simply relay what’s known.
• Digital tools—which include cameras, corporate websites and social channels—are incredibly powerful and are relied upon for information, especially during emergencies. Con Ed wisely used Twitter to update on operational statuses, provide contact information, dispute false statements and answer questions. The MTA used Twitter to distribute service maps and updates on upcoming service. The Interactive Advertising Bureau turned to Gmail when its servers went down, and Edelman set up a private Facebook group for employees to communicate.

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• 8 Technology Lessons of Hurricane Sandy
• Individual responders are now connected.
• Organizers can interact in real-time with responders, something that wasn’t possible (or at least wasn’t happening) in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• Response is still dependent on utilities.
• LTE is everywhere.
• One of the most interesting discoveries was the value of LTE. While LTE coverage is still very limited internationally, domestically LTE coverage is robust and complete.
• Deploy wired infrastructure early, wireless when you must.
• In extreme situations, people reach for low-tech.
• In strained situations people will reach for what they know instead of taking the time to learn something new.
• Video is now informing major decisions.
• user-submitted video provided reliable info that was used to make decisions in real-time.
• In any emergency situation focus can narrow leading to blind spots and communication issues. Responding to Hurricane Sandy, NYC officials were not aware of additional communications channels used by volunteer groups and had almost no insight into their actions. To make matters worse national response agencies use ICS and NIMS frameworks to coordinate, but most volunteer groups either don’t know these frameworks exist or don’t know how to integrate with them.

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