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Web tools, social media now widely used by emergency managers

Preparation, response vastly different when Andrew struck

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Emergency management managers increasingly add websites, social media and smartphone applications to their communications toolkits. These are emergency preparation and response tools that few even imagined during Hurricane Andrew 20 years ago.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the American Red Cross and various state and local government emergency management departments are among those making more use of Web-based emergency information systems, social media like Facebook and Twitter and smartphone apps as part of their emergency management strategies.

“Back with Hurricane Andrew nobody knew what social media was,” said Gerald Campbell, chief of planning at Lee County Emergency Management in Fort Myers, Fla. Now, however, he said, “It's one more tool for us to use as emergency managers.”

Last year Lee County rolled out its LeeEvac mobile app for Apple iPhones and iPads, following it this year with a version for Android devices.

“The bottom line is...here in southwest Florida evacuations for hurricanes are a difficult thing,” Mr. Campbell said. “What we found over time is that, while people like maps, they have a difficult time using them properly. Along with that, there's a whole demographic that is comfortable using smartphones and getting their information that way.”

The free LeeEvac app uses the device's GPS capability along with information from the Lee County property appraiser's database to alert users to evacuations, tell them which evacuation zone they're in, and connect them with a list of shelters from Lee County Emergency Management's website.

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Mr. Campbell said, with Lee County having many older residents, many of them don't tend to be smartphone users. “People like it, but the demographics that we have here, there are a lot of people who aren't comfortable with smartphones,” he said.

But, he said, the app is just one more piece of an emergency communications approach in Lee County that continues to include other traditional media such as print pieces, television and radio spots and the emergency management department's website.

Others utilizing digital tools to help address emergency conditions echoed Mr. Campbell's view that they're one more piece of a broader effort.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration started using social media in 2011, said Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the center. “We started a Facebook page last year and it really was one of our great success stories in 2011,” he said.

“It's important to realize that Facebook is not intended to replace anything we're doing at the National Hurricane Center,” Mr. Feltgen said. “It's another tool in our toolbox to get the message out.”

Outside of the June-through-November hurricane season, the center uses the Facebook page to spread messages about hurricane preparation and about its various outreach events. “During the hurricane season there's always a post in the morning...letting them know what's going on in the tropics,” Mr. Feltgen said. The center's Facebook page has 151,000 followers.

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“We're also tweeting,” Mr. Feltgen said. The hurricane center's Twitter activity covers Atlantic and Pacific storm activity, with automatic tweets every time there's a storm advisory.

“We also have a tweet for storm surge as well,” he said. “That one's actually giving some specific information about storm surge impacts for areas when there's a landfall.”

In Harris County, Texas, a team of Rice University researchers developed the storm risk calculator, a Web tool that provides neighborhood-specific hurricane damage assessments for homes in the county.

Robert M. Stein, the Lena Gohlman Fox professor of political science at Rice University in Houston who helped develop the storm risk calculator, said a major goal of the project was to encourage risk-appropriate behavior from county residents when a storm approaches Harris County.

“In 2005 during Rita and Katrina evacuations, there was a large amount of what emergency planners call inappropriate behaviors,” such as residents evacuating areas where evacuations weren't necessary and causing major highway congestion, Mr. Stein said.

In response, the Rice University team researched how people perceive hazards and how they think they will be affected by them. “The website was a product of that,” Mr. Stein said.

Using National Weather Service and Harris County Tax Appraisal District data, the risk calculator provides users a risk profile for a one-square kilometer area around their address, assessing such exposures as wind damage, flooding and power outages. As storms approach, the calculator is updated with NOAA information.

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The Tampa, Fla.-based Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety created the Know Your Plan app with the Insurance Information Institute “to find ways to communicate with people the way they are communicating,” said Brenda O'Connor, senior vice president of communications, at the institute for business and home safety.

The iPhone app provides resources and checklists consumers can use to reduce the risk of property damage in extreme weather events or other disasters.

“The other thing that's in the app that's really useful is the Google crisis response feed,” Ms. O'Connor said. The Google feed provides users access to local emergency information during a catastrophe.

“I think all of us that are in the communications business know we need to adapt,” Ms. O'Connor said. “I was talking to somebody and said remember the old days when they had ham radios? That was a great way to communicate with people in a disaster. That was then.”