Social media and emergencies

[kyeboi]

Well said SgtSeedy,


As a member of the vollies in wanneroo area our relationship between DEC and wanneroo fire brigades is really, really awesome and is growing every season. this so called ''TIFF'' would be high in the chain than any of us need to worry about! personal at the end of the day everyone is on the same side regardless!!!! if the FRS didnt have vollies they would be screw if the vollies didnt have DEC we would be screw!! everyone needs to just get over slagging each other off !!!!

[nachoman]

Risks behind Perth's Facebook groups (watoday.com.au)

Well-meaning people who set up social media pages to alert people of issues in their area might not be aware of the many challenges they could face when they initially set out to do something "good".

[Zebedee]

Risks behind Perth's Facebook groups (watoday.com.au)

Well-meaning people who set up social media pages to alert people of issues in their area might not be aware of the many challenges they could face when they initially set out to do something "good".

I was reading that article on the way to work this morning and having a bit of a chuckle. Seems like a bit of a non-story to me. It's amusing that they're worried about misinformation being spread via social networks but are happy to do the exact same things themselves from time to time via the more traditional media outlets.

Personally I think that more information is generally better than less, which is why our emergency services have taken to platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to post updates. It wasn't that long ago where people were complaining about the official emergency alerts going out via ABC radio because "we never listen to the radio so we didn't know", etc. Now there's all these other avenues for spreading the word about incidents and events.

Of course there's always the potential for MISinformation to be spread as well, either accidentally or maliciously but that's not something unique to social networks, that's been going on since the dawn of time.

It just seems like a bit of a fuss about nothing to me.

[Blinky]

Probably a good place to mention a new website that started today for all the good and
bad reasons mentioned in the article.

http://www.alertwa.com

Combines all sorts of feeds from councils, transport,health,emergency services plus weather and other things.

[Wazza Y]

One app I have found to be good is emergency aus. It combines both Dec and DFES warnings as well as Dec planned burns information. It also includes a page for users to report anything the see themselves including photos. It is claimed to be very thoroughly checked but now and again some clowns keep posting stupid things like - I have found the droids you are looking for. They claim to ban those who post false information but that comment keeps coming up.
Another sad issue with informing people about fires and incidents is the idiots who will light fires just to see their fire on the warnings page. Lets hope there don't use it as a competition.

[meg]

I think they should be in equal amounts grateful that there are more timely information sources about emergencies than the DFES website... an old gripe, but still a relevant one

[dlcat1]

Just thought I'd put in my experiences from watching how social media is used over east.

I've been watching the CFA and RFS facebook pages over here. www.facebook.com/cfavic and www.facebook.com/nswrfs which provide pretty good updates. I think the RFS page is probably more social media friendly, their updates are often made for twitter so you get need to know info in the first line, whereas the CFA ones are set out so you need to expand it to get info buried halfway down the page. RFS also post community maps more often than the CFA which keep them on their website. Both seem to be way ahead of most traditional media who seem to repeat alerts that are hours old. ABC local does better but still lags a little way at times. They both have an app, http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/plan-prepare/fireready-app/ and http://www.rfs.nsw.gov.au/dsp_content.cfm?cat_id=131251 Haven't used the rfs 'Fires near me' but the cfa 'Fire Ready' app works ok most of the time. You can set up alert zones to tell you when an incident near you happens, although probably 70% of them near me (Melbourne urban fringe) are medical alerts or structures.

Not really social media, but the RFS incident map gets mirrored to a google crisis map http://google.org/crisismap/2013-nsw-bushfires while I have found this little beauty for the Vic fires (which even shows aircraft disposition) http://incidentalert.com.au/iav4/veMapv2.asp#close

There are problems with social media, people spreading rumor, information gets outdated and needs to be kept on top of, facebook posts in particular get replies that go way off topic at times. There will probably always be gaps, people wont have data or mobile coverage, won't have a radio or won't know which channel to listen to, but there are so many more ways to get info than there used to be.

[Helitak_670]

I think the RFS is certainly leading the way in this aspect and that all other states should at least follow suit. I was at a DFES meeting and they said they don't have the resources to man people for social media. Seriously it can't be that hard. I have also heard the IC ask for an emergency warning to be issued. 1hr later it is on the DFES website which is so sub standard it is not funny. I honestly believe as soon as an incident is classed as a 3rd alarm there should be a general Watch and Act message put up on the site straight away.

[dlcat1]

Admittedly I'm not up on the details, but notice both CFA and RFS have a system that integrates their twitter and facebook accounts, so in my eyes it should be as simple as plugging the details into a form for the alert, publishing it, and then posting a tweet, something simple like "alert level, suburbs, incident type, any details you can fit, link to alert on website" That's all you need, the rest of the social media stuff, like answering questions and posting content is awesome to have but not neccessary.

[vk6hgr]

so in my eyes it should be as simple as plugging the details into a form for the alert, publishing it, and then posting a tweet

DFES already do that but the issue is always the delay in the details actually going up on the DFES website.

IMHO, DFES rely too heavily on the "publish to broadcast media" model which is fine for people who actually still watch and listen to traditional broadcast media... I am not among them.

[Diceman]

DFES need to take a leaf out of WAPOL on social media

[Raptor]

DFES need to take a leaf out of WAPOL on social media

master the art of spam ? nearly as bad as NSW Highway patrol updates!