Roxanne Darling of Barefeet Studios and personal friend recaps the way Social Media had an impact on how information flowed around the globe about the tsunami created by the earthquake off the coast of Chile.
When I awoke Saturday morning to the news of the quake, which I first saw via Twitter, I immediately sent a tweet to both Roxanne and Shane and called their phone to let them know a wave was on its way. At the time they had well over 12 hours before the wave would reach their island of Oahu and it even turned out to be a nonevent. However, after seeing this animation of how the wave moved around the Pacific Ocean, and its scale in comparison to Hawai’i, I’m glad that I reacted as quickly as I did and that they did too. A few subtle changes to any of the circumstances regarding the tsunami could have easily turned a nonevent to a devastating one.
Great to see the Social Web play such an integral role in providing people with warnings, information, and communications during times of disasters. Much of the time the Social Web is looked at as a waste of time but all the time spent "playing" on these services ends up being extremely valuable when they are put to other uses.