Guest Post by: Catherine Graham, Humanity Road
We have published our Humanity Road USA #SMEM directory! There are over 3,000 counties in the USA – Finding the right information fast in disaster is important. Our mission at Humanity Road is to connect the public to information they need on how to survive, sustain and reunite. In pursuit of that Humanity Road has been collating information on official social media emergency management accounts and using this list at the onset of disaster.
We are pleased to announce that in partnership with Emergency 2.0 Wiki and through the Humanitarian Toolbox initiative in a hackathon held this weekend in Austin, TX this information has now been published to a public directory with Emergency 2.0 Wiki. This is the first step in creating the USA #SMEM directory and it is the largest directory of its kind for USA based social media accounts. As social media emergency management accounts grow, so will this directory.
Humanity Road is committed to preparedness, response and process improvement in response to disaster. It’s through process improvement that we gain headway in mitigating loss of life and property and help catalyze the recovery. In transitioning this important directory to the public domain we also are launching an SMEM Directory forum for page administration roles for each state and USA territories. The following pages have been published:
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
Districts & Territories: American Samoa, District of Columbia, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, Minor Outlying Islands, Northern Marianas, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands
As you can see it was a large undertaking! We wish to thank all those volunteers who have spent many many hours collecting this data and to the development team who gave up their weekend to make this directory a reality. We extend a special thank you to Katelyn Keegan who initiated this project, and to Robin Smith who truly helped make it a reality through her many hours of research and tenacity.
A big thank you to @ClearMeasure @jeffreypalermo @mattsell @phredAustin in Austin Texas for hosting the hackathon that helped make it a reality as well as @EileenCulleton with @Emergency20wiki and @TonySurma with the Humanitarian Toolbox team. The Humanitarian Toolbox http://www.htbox.org/ project is proving that when disaster strikes, code saves lives! The Humanitarian Toolbox is a sustained effort to leverage technology and skilled volunteer communities to solve the needs of response organizations and communities affected by natural disasters. The creation of this directory is a good example of the benefits that can be achieved through such a valuable program.
It’s important to maintain and grow the directory as the field of Social Media in emergency response grows. If you are interested in being listed as your state liaison for the #SMEM Directory sign up here http://bit.ly/SMEMDir
A huge thanks to the volunteer team at Humanity Road for your daily commitment to humanity!
Related articles
SMEM Directory (www.humanityroad.org)
Giving Back (http://atomicbytes.azurewebsites.net)
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