San Diego Fires and Disaster Reporting 2.0

The San Diego fires this week have helped to demonstrate that social media communities such as Twitter are valued communication channels - especially so in extreme circumstances.

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Twitter hashtags for emergency coordination and disaster relief

Great idea of how we can tag posts in Twitter via the #hashtag convention, in a similar vein to how @username got started. Great example of this approach in practice following the San Diego Fires (#sandiegofire).

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A Peruvian City Is Left Devastated by Quake - New York Times

No area along the southern coast of Peru, which was ravaged by an earthquake that killed at least 510 people, appears to have been harder hit than this port city.

Most of the city’s homes and office buildings were destroyed, leaving survivors wandering the streets and mourning in the open air, surrounded by shards of adobe and cinderblocks.

Rescuers have been forced by the destruction to walk far out of their way as they carried bodies, sometimes in coffins on their shoulders, toward a makeshift morgue at the overwhelmed hospital. Coffins sat in front of many doorways in anticipation of the recovery of loved ones in the rubble.

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Wiped Off the Map - Greensburg, Kansas (Article)

"The stories in newspapers nationwide said: "At 9:45pm on Friday, May 4, 2007, the lives of the nearly 1400 citizens of Greensburg, Kansas were changed forever." What they should have said was: "What happened on May 4, 2007 will change the lives of 2.7 million people forever." Why? Because the entire state of Kansas will feel the impact of the awesome tornado that devastated the town - today, tomorrow, and for years to come. This story is to exemplify the obstacles that a few of our fellow Kansas Association of Mappers (KAM) members had to face in order to "rebuild" the city."

Full Story:
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=2523&trv=1