Use of media can save lives in bad storms

The number and intensity of storms and other extreme weather events are on the increase all over the world. The latest study by the Medical University of Vienna in cooperation with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) uses the example of one of the largest American series of tornados of all times to show that the risk of injury can be reduced significantly with the use of certain media.

Several dozen tornados struck in April 2011 across Southeast USA and made for an image of devastation. Thomas Niederkrotenthaler from the Centre for Public Health of the Medical University of Vienna used this third-largest series of tornados in the history of the USA as an opportunity to conduct a study, which just appeared in the latest edition of the international top journal PLOS ONE.

Television and social media offer particularly good protection

Together with his research team, Niederkrotenthaler investigated the behavioral factors which reduce or increase the risk of injury. The researchers particularly concentrated on the media use by those affected, which had never been scientifically investigated in this context so far. The results of the study show that people who used media intensively for education during the series of tornados, had a significantly less risk of injury. Television and Internet were mainly protective and warnings via social media such as Twitter and Facebook particularly in this case.

"The media carried out excellent work. It accurately predicted the streets and the locations through which the tornados would pass, and continuously provided information about changes in the predictions. The corresponding media users could thus effectively protect themselves from the consequences of the storms," says Niederkrotenthaler. "The great protective effect of media has its cause in an important characteristic feature of tornados because unlike hurricanes, its exact course can only be predicted shortly before its arrival. The target forecast lead time of the US National Weather Service is just 15 minutes."

Adapting the US prevention guidelines on the basis of the Medical University of Vienna/CDC study

The media is however also important for another reason: Approximately 20 percent of the injuries are caused only after a tornado, mainly during the cleaning-up operations. Toppling trees and accidents with chain saws are especially dangerous and rather frequent. This was an outcome that led to an adaptation of the American prevention guidelines. Niederkrotenthaler also says: "The tornado prevention guidelines were adapted as an outcome of our study. The media now informs the citizens that they need to be particularly careful after tornados as well."

The internationally composed research team identified a visit to shelters and cellar rooms as another important protective factor. Niederkrotenthaler said, "As a whole, factors of primary prevention mainly save lives in such cases. In Alabama alone there were 212 deaths due to the tornado outbreak; however, most of the victims did not make it to a hospital, which emphasizes the relevance of primary prevention." Tornado sirens also correspondingly made a significant contribution to protecting the civil population. They did sound quite frequently because of false alarms, but those affected have surprisingly not become hardened because of that -- on the contrary: "People, who had already heard the sirens before when a tornado actually struck, protected themselves better than others even during the series of tornados which we investigated," says Niederkrotenthaler.

Journal Reference:

Thomas Niederkrotenthaler, Erin M. Parker, Fernando Ovalle, Rebecca E. Noe, Jeneita Bell, Likang Xu, Melissa A. Morrison, Caitlin E. Mertzlufft, David E. Sugerman. Injuries and Post-Traumatic Stress following Historic Tornados: Alabama, April 2011. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (12): e83038 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0083038

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Facebook to the Rescue! How Social Media is Changing Disaster Response (Time.com)

Alycia Williamson-Smith and her family didn't have anywhere else to turn. It had been days since a devastating tornado ravaged Joplin, Mo., home to her second cousin James Williamson. With cell-phone service largely unavailable and a distance of several thousand miles between her house in Amsterdam, N.Y., and Joplin, Williamson-Smith posted photos of James on several Facebook pages that were created in the aftermath of the tornado. Less than 24 hours later, she saw a comment on a page called "Joplin Tornado Citizen Checks" that said James had been found and was volunteering with search-and-rescue teams. "Even though at that point we hadn't spoken to him directly, it was comforting to know that someone out there had seen him and that he was O.K.," says Williamson-Smith.

Two weeks after the storm, that Facebook page had about 6,500 "likes" and was still growing every day. Stories of joyful reunions mixed with those mourning the loss of loved ones, along with messages about supplies, prayers and support. The page was one of dozens that sprouted in the immediate aftermath, quickly becoming the fastest way to get information, as survivors and their relatives relied on social media as they might once have leaned on the Red Cross or local relief agencies. "The biggest part of using social media during a disaster is that it's not about the government helping the public; it's about the public helping themselves," says Kim Stephens, a senior associate at ABT Associates and an emergency-management expert. "Before, you were left trying to find out how to get what you need, and now the desire and need is matched quickly and easily. It's peer-to-peer aid." (See "For Joplin, Nothing Is Certain in Tornado's Wake.")

Halfway around the world in Japan, social media was a primary source of communication following the earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11. However, unlike the situation in Joplin, citizens were using networks like Twitter, Facebook and Mixi (a Japan-specific social site) to send warnings, ask for help and relay bits of information from the scene as well as to announce that they were safe. According to Mashable, only an hour after the earthquake, more than 1,200 tweets per minute were being sent from Tokyo. Hashtags like #prayforjapan, #earthquake and #tsunami trended almost instantly, and were being tweeted thousands of times per second by people all over the globe, according to Poynter. And not surprisingly, Twitter reported both a record number of tweets the day of the quake (177 million) and accounts added one day after (572,000, as opposed to the daily average of 460,000).

Jesse Green, executive director of the Tokyo office for p.r. firm Hill & Knowlton, was in Beijing when the earthquake hit Japan. He used Facebook and Twitter to connect with his family, friends and co-workers as well as to receive updates on the situation. "[Social media] helped to an extent I would never have previously imagined," Green says. "Many of my friends, my wife included, joined Twitter just to keep up with all the breaking news and be part of the conversation where possible. While the broadcast media gave their global audience an understanding of what was taking place, social media provided the underlying picture - especially useful for those of us living in Japan, where the top-line details simply weren't enough." (See "Japan Quake Survivor Walks 20 Hours to Find Girlfriend.")

While conventional telephone lines often go down or become overwhelmed during a disaster, Internet connections often remain active and usable. "People can get out texts or tweets way easier than they can get out a phone call, and that's something [emergency managers] don't plan for," Stephens says. "Most of the planning is based on the assumption that there will be no communications in the impacted area. That's become a false assumption. Now we know that there are communications."

With that in mind, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have all implemented social strategies into their emergency-management plans. In April, the Department of Homeland Security announced that it would revise its terrorism-advisory system, including a provision that alerts would be sent out over social networks "when appropriate." Shortly thereafter, FEMA and the FCC, along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, unveiled PLAN (Personalized Localized Alert Network), the nation's first geographically targeted emergency-notification system, which sends free emergency alerts to enabled mobile devices to warn citizens of "imminent threats" in their area. This service is expected to roll out in New York City by the end of the year.

Of course, as with anything on the Web, social media has a tendency to breed rumors and inaccuracies that could hurt recovery efforts. And as Amanda Ripley, a TIME contributor and author of the book The Unthinkable: Who Survives in Disasters and Why, points out, during disasters, people have a tendency to move slowly or shut down completely as a protective measure. "Anything that exacerbates that tendency - texting, taking pictures, tweeting - can be dangerous," she says.

It's true that social media is often thought of as nothing more than a distraction, or an attempt to replace a real community with a virtual one. But when faced with a disaster like in Joplin or Japan, these networks become a lot more. "I think that citizens communicating with other citizens, well, that's kind of the definition of resilience," Stephens says.

See pictures of the wreckage in Joplin by photojournalist Edward Keating.

See TIME's photo-essay "The Calamity of Japan's 9.0-Magnitude Quake."

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