Twitter Can Predict Hurricane Damage As Well As Emergency Agencies (sciencemag.org)

sciencehabit quotes an article from ScienceMag.com: In October 2012, meteorologists noticed a massive low-pressure system forming over the waters south of Cuba. In just 5 days, it spun into one of the largest hurricanes on record, cutting a path up the eastern U.S. coast and devastating communities with flooding and 140-kilometer-per-hour winds. Superstorm Sandy posed a massive problem for government clean-up crews. Where should they send their limited emergency supplies and services? A new study suggests a way to get that answer fast: Just listen to Twitter. Scientists have found that data gathered from the social media platform is as accurate and powerful as that collected by FEMA.

Comments

Oblig xkcd

[NotInHere]

https://xkcd.com/723/

Re:Oblig xkcd

[ClickOnThis]

This one kind of fits also.

Whodathunk

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Gee, a centralized place where people can easily post short catalogable messages provides valuable data about events. I thought Twitter was exclusively about narcissism.

this will create a twitter access bias

[sittingnut]

"Where should they send their limited emergency supplies and services?... Just listen to Twitter"
but if during emergency, twitter is inaccessible to certain locations and accessible to others, such a selection of response based on twitter will skew the response to those who have access.
furthermore if certain community/neighborhood have more social media usage and another less, it will also skew the response.

Re:this will create a twitter access bias

[Anonymous Coward]

Big data is like a pagan god. If you don't bring a sacrifice to them, they are evil to you. You must have a shrine in your own house (PC/laptop), and wear their sign on your arm (smartwatch). If you service the god, they will be just to you, and if you don't do as they please their wrath will come upon you and they will destroy your house and the house of your children, and their children and so forth, your family never is cleaned from your sins.

Re:this will create a twitter access bias

[ShanghaiBill]

if during emergency, twitter is inaccessible to certain locations and accessible to others ...

In an emergency, one of the top priorities should be to get communications working. Drones with cell repeaters should be sent in as soon as the storm passes, and the phone companies should be able to let FEMA know which cell towers are not functioning. Cell towers are rugged, and they have backup batteries, so unless there was an EMP, most should be functioning.

Re:this will create a twitter access bias

[darkain]

The example was Cuba though. While cell towers may be rugged, how rugged is the back-haul network to support them? Just because a cell tower has battery backed power, and a cell phone can communicate with it, doesn't mean that the cell tower can still communicate with the back-haul network and/or internet. This is one of the situations where satellite phones becomes invaluable.

Re:this will create a twitter access bias

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what Ham radio operators and R.A.C.E.S. exists for. Ham radio operators were the first to re-establish ground communications during hurricane Sandy and Katrina. Ham radio operators are so effective R.A.C.E.S. is actually folded under a leg of FEMA.

We test our gear on a yearly basis during Field Day. We try and make as many contacts across the US as possible with as little power as possible using various communication methods over long wave radio (20M, 40M, 80M, 160M) .Be it generator, battery, solar, wind, etc. Long wave radio can also go thousands of miles without repeaters which is why it's so effective.

Restoring the cellular grid is not a priority as it's not used by Emergency Services for communication. The cellular grid is very short range radio (Line of Sight) and is not very efficient at being used for emergency communications due to it's reliance on backhaul connections, POPs, etc all being operational.

Re:this will create a twitter access bias

[DNS-and-BIND]

Yes, but the data is right there. These days, if data is easily available but inaccurate, they'll take the faulty data anytime. When it's pointed out that the data is lacking, they'll say, "oh well, them's the breaks, it's easier than actually doing work" and go on like nothing happened.

Limits in supplies should be very brief

[fustakrakich]

12 hours max, if the airport is closed. It only requires a lot of people, airplanes, and trucks to deliver. And we got plenty, all over the country. It's a simple question how much you want to spend and how fast.

And I can predict hurricane damage without Twitter. If you build your house out of concrete, above sea level, I'll bet odds it will stay intact. The biggest problem is frailty of the infrastructure, shoddy construction, etc. You got insurance, right? :-)

public utility = equal access with no censorship?

[sittingnut]

further to what i said above about access bias during emergency, i see another problem if twitter is used to channel public resources.

recently twitter established orwellian sounding "trust & safety council" to monitor, censor, and even ban, users who engage in hate speech and other such activities. it has already controversially banned some.
now twitter's actions/censorships/banning within its property can be justified because it is a private company . but public institutions selecting and channeling public resources based on interactions in a private gated community which is censoring speech(which is legal in public spaces outside of it however hateful) cannot be justified.

140 KPH?

[darkain]

Twitter at 140 KPH? Keystrokes Per Human.

Predict?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess predict doesn't mean what I thought it meant.

Re:Predict?

[penguinoid]

You can predict how much the beancounters will decide the damage adds up to, months or years after the disaster.

Re:Predict?

[Mr D from 63]

I guess predict doesn't mean what I thought it meant.

I predict we'll have more stupid headlines in the recent past.

Wind damage, water damage.

[sethstorm]

It won't stop the insurance agencies from ruling wind damage as water damage (and vice versa) to skip out of claims.

How helpful

[drinkypoo]

Now FEMA will know which disaster to ignore even more rapidly.

Come on

[nospam007]

Didn't we read the same thing a dozen times already during the years?

Twitter, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Altavista, Hotbot, CompuServe, ... can predict Hurricanes, the flu, tsunamis, bad weather ...

and if by predict you mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

And if by predict you mean assist in identifying the area of greater impact.....