Briony Gray, Mark Weal, & David Martin. (2018). Supporting Situational Awareness during Disasters: The Case of Hurricane Irma. In Kristin Stock, & Deborah Bunker (Eds.), Proceedings of ISCRAM Asia Pacific 2018: Innovating for Resilience – 1st International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management Asia Pacific. (pp. 123–131). Albany, Auckland, New Zealand: Massey Univeristy.
Abstract: In a rapidly globalizing world, disasters and the way in which they are managed are changing. Social media, in conjunction with other online resources, now provide a wealth of information throughout the lifecycle of disasters and are relied upon by individuals and emergency responders alike. The study of such data as a lens for analysis has proved valuable in recent years, with many contributing to targeted emergency response protocols and improved methods for the management strategies of future crises. This study seeks to make a similar contribution by reporting on the use of such data for situational awareness during the case of hurricane Irma, which occurred between September and August 2017. Using a mixed methods approach the paper examines data from social media such as Twitter, as well as other online sources such as blogs and news media, to provide original insight into the disaster. A conceptual framework is then applied to determine the uses and users of social media, and to identify how these change throughout the course of the disaster, thus demonstrating situational awareness over time. The paper concludes with proposed improvements for disaster management and emergency response for future similar disasters, specifically in the hurricane season, in addition to more generalized hazards which are predicted to increase in their frequency and severity due to underlying issues such as climate change.
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Kamol Roy, MD Ashraf Ahmed, Samiul Hasan, & Arif Mohaimin Sadri, P. D. (2020). Dynamics of Crisis Communications in Social Media: Spatio-temporal and Text-based Comparative Analyses of Twitter Data from Hurricanes Irma and Michael. In Amanda Hughes, Fiona McNeill, & Christopher W. Zobel (Eds.), ISCRAM 2020 Conference Proceedings – 17th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 812–824). Blacksburg, VA (USA): Virginia Tech.
Abstract: Social media platforms play critical roles in information dissemination, communication and co-ordination during different phases of natural disasters as it is crucial to know the type of crisis information being disseminated and user concerns. Large-scale Twitter data from hurricanes Irma (Sept. 2017) and Michael (Oct. 2018) are used here to understand the topic dynamics over time by applying the Dynamic Topic Model, followed by a comparative analyses of the differences in such dynamics for these two hurricane scenarios. We performed a spatio-temporal analyses of user activities with reference to the hurricane center location and wind speed. The findings of spatio-temporal analyses show that differences in hurricane path and the affected regions influence user participation and social media activity. Besides, topic dynamics reveals that situational awareness, disruptions, relief action are among the patterns common for both hurricanes; unlike topics such as hurricane evacuation and political situation that are scenario dependent.
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Robin Batard, Frederick Benaben, Aurélie Montarnal, Christophe Prieur, & Caroline Rizza. (2018). Ethical, Legal and Social considerations surrounding the use of social media by citizens during Hurricane Irma in Cuba. In Kees Boersma, & Brian Tomaszeski (Eds.), ISCRAM 2018 Conference Proceedings – 15th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (pp. 268–275). Rochester, NY (USA): Rochester Institute of Technology.
Abstract: While Hurricane Irma struck the Cuban Southern coasts, thousands of tourists were evacuated from this area and relocated in the Varadero peninsula. In a couple of days, all means for families and friends to connect with the tourists were down, leaving them without any information about the on-site situation. This paper focuses on the volunteer citizens' initiative to take advantage of social media, to enhance their own situational awareness in Varadero area, supporting fellow citizens to identify and localize their relatives. In particular, two Facebook groups that were created at the time are analyzed and their messages' content and objectives categorized. We will show that once more, social media has constituted opportunities for citizens to engage a specific response to the crisis, but at the same time has raised specific ethical and social issues.
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Daniel Stein, Barbara Krausz, Jobst Löffler, Robin Marterer, Rolf Bardeli, Jochen Schwenninger, et al. (2012). Enriching an intelligent resource management system with automatic event recognition. In Z.Franco J. R. L. Rothkrantz (Ed.), ISCRAM 2012 Conference Proceedings – 9th International Conference on Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management. Vancouver, BC: Simon Fraser University.
Abstract: Event recognition systems have high potential to support crisis management and emergency response. Given the vast amount of possible input channels, automatic processing of raw data is crucial. In this paper, we describe several components integrated in an overall intelligent resource management system, namely abnormal event detection in audio and video material, as well as automatic speech recognition within a public safety network. We elaborate on the challenges expected from real life data and the solutions that we applied. The overall system, based on Event-Driven Service-Oriented Architecture, has been implemented and partly integrated into the end users' infrastructures. The system is continuously running since almost two years, collecting data for research purposes. © 2012 ISCRAM.
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