Social media lets customers communicate with companies to get...

information about resources in their communities and get messages to first responders, people they know and the utilities and other companies they patronize. Such collaboration is done with online crisis maps and social media including Facebook and Twitter, and websites like Airbnb.com, said executives from Google and Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSE&G) and Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman. With each natural disaster, the public and the private sector collaborate to further their technologies, said Beckerman, who also testified at a House Emergency Preparedness Subcommittee hearing Tuesday, in a follow-up interview. After the earthquake in Haiti in 2010, Facebook created a disaster relief page, and this technology became ongoing protocol for every disaster since then, he said. “In 2005 during Hurricane Katrina, social media did not exist and only 50 percent of users were online.” There are pre-disaster, during disaster and aftermath protocols when it comes to social media, he said. “We have an ongoing response with FEMA and the Red Cross and we are improving public private partnerships on a real-time basis.” Crowdsourcing played a major role in preparing for storms and organizing resources after storms have passed, said Matthew Stepka, Google vice president, at the hearing. Four days before Superstorm Sandy hit, the company created alerts for search terms related to the storm, with a warning from the National Weather Service, he said. “Through user-generated content in Crisis Maps during Hurricane Sandy, we were able to share better updates than those we got only from official sources.” Through Crisis Maps, people are able to look at all of the data in a central place, said Stepka. “We are currently working with official U.S. agencies, such as the National Weather Service and the Geological Survey, to show relevant alerts to Google users, and we welcome partnerships with other agencies who publish authoritative alerts.” Jason Payne, Palantir Technologies philanthropy engineering team lead, said FirstNet “is going to be used for emergency personnel to have access to LTE data.” It “should also be allocated in small amounts to the Red Cross” and others to perform their missions, he told us. “If people were able to put up a quick Facebook message, it would put the minds of their friends and family at ease, because they would know that they are safe.” Palantir is working with the Clinton Global Initiative to scale up the initiative’s disaster relief and make better decisions. The company and its partners “need to know how to allocate personnel to meet needs,” said Payne. New Jersey utility PSE&G used Twitter to connect with customers during and after Sandy, testified Jorge Cardenas, vice president-asset management and centralized services. “We used Twitter to send word about the daily locations of our giant tents and generators. … We sent more than 9,000 messages and saw some 90,000 directed at us.” PSE&G plans to teach people in neighboring states the company’s methods to engage with customers, said Cardenas. There’s a need to have accurate and plentiful information during emergencies, when it comes to crowdsourcing, witnesses testified. “With more data, you can fuse together the best information that you can build,” said Payne. People need to be connected, especially in times of emergency, where they cannot get information from regular broadcast channels, said Cardenas. “We need to talk with people, and not to people.”