ONLINE FORUMS SUPPORTING
`GRASSROOTS PARTICIPATION
`in Emergency Preparedness and Response
`
`Figure 1. A map annotation
`describing the status of a
`well-known landmark after
`Hurricane Katrina struck the
`U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
`
`“When danger arises, the rule in normal situations is for people to help
`those next to them before they help themselves.”
`
`in addition to any official government and non-gov-
`ernmental Web sites (for example, see the article by
`Currion, de Silva, and Van de Walle in this issue and
`[8]). Online groups might themselves become new
`“virtual” communities with their own membership
`policies and norms [4, 9]; they might be based on an
`existing, physical space community first guided by
`the local knowledge that the population shares; or
`they might be a blend of the two, depending on the
`magnitude of the crisis. Online forums can extend
`the opportunity for grassroots social action to any-
`one who wants to get involved; physical space com-
`munity members might turn to them as virtual
`gathering spaces to communicate with fellow citi-
`zens when disaster conditions make this difficult.
`
`In this article, we describe illustrative citizen-led
`online forums that emerged following the August
`2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster; during the rampant
`2003 San Bernardino, CA wildfires; and in prepara-
`tion for a possible avian flu pandemic.
`
`2005 HURRICANE KATRINA
`On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made
`landfall as a Category 3 storm on the coasts of
`Louisiana and Mississippi, causing catastrophic
`damage throughout the region. The city of New
`Orleans was devastated by flooding from breaches
`in the levees designed to protect the city from the
`water contained in neighboring Lake Pontchartrain.
`Citywide evacuation led to the eventual dispersion
`
`COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3
`
`55
`
`C
`
`BY LEYSIA PALEN, STARR ROXANNE HILTZ,
`AND SOPHIA B. LIU
`
`ontrary to what is often por-
`trayed, local citizens are the
`true “first responders” in
`emergency situations. Until
`professional response person-
`nel arrive, citizens are the first to perform rescues, adminis-
`ter first aid, and transport victims to hospitals. Even after
`the response moves from an informal to a formal effort,
`sociological research shows that citizens continue to self-
`organize and provide ongoing assistance by providing food,
`shelter, child care assistance, employment, transportation,
`and so on [1]. Now, with the increasingly accessible Internet,
`online forums have allowed
`people to cross geographical
`boundaries that normally
`constrain the reach of crises
`to share information and
`coordinate citizen-led efforts,
`
`54
`
`March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
`
`Meta EX1009
`IPR2024-00529
`U.S. Patent No. 8,332,454
`
`

`

`ONLINE FORUMS SUPPORTING
`GRASSROOTS PARTICIPATION
`in Emergency Preparedness and Response
`
`Figure 1. A map annotation
`describing the status of a
`well-known landmark after
`Hurricane Katrina struck the
`U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
`
`“When danger arises, the rule in normal situations is for people to help
`those next to them before they help themselves.”
`
`in addition to any official government and non-gov-
`ernmental Web sites (for example, see the article by
`Currion, de Silva, and Van de Walle in this issue and
`[8]). Online groups might themselves become new
`“virtual” communities with their own membership
`policies and norms [4, 9]; they might be based on an
`existing, physical space community first guided by
`the local knowledge that the population shares; or
`they might be a blend of the two, depending on the
`magnitude of the crisis. Online forums can extend
`the opportunity for grassroots social action to any-
`one who wants to get involved; physical space com-
`munity members might turn to them as virtual
`gathering spaces to communicate with fellow citi-
`zens when disaster conditions make this difficult.
`
`In this article, we describe illustrative citizen-led
`online forums that emerged following the August
`2005 Hurricane Katrina disaster; during the rampant
`2003 San Bernardino, CA wildfires; and in prepara-
`tion for a possible avian flu pandemic.
`
`2005 HURRICANE KATRINA
`On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made
`landfall as a Category 3 storm on the coasts of
`Louisiana and Mississippi, causing catastrophic
`damage throughout the region. The city of New
`Orleans was devastated by flooding from breaches
`in the levees designed to protect the city from the
`water contained in neighboring Lake Pontchartrain.
`Citywide evacuation led to the eventual dispersion
`
`COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3
`
`55
`
`C
`
`BY LEYSIA PALEN, STARR ROXANNE HILTZ,
`AND SOPHIA B. LIU
`
`ontrary to what is often por-
`trayed, local citizens are the
`true “first responders” in
`emergency situations. Until
`professional response person-
`nel arrive, citizens are the first to perform rescues, adminis-
`ter first aid, and transport victims to hospitals. Even after
`the response moves from an informal to a formal effort,
`sociological research shows that citizens continue to self-
`organize and provide ongoing assistance by providing food,
`shelter, child care assistance, employment, transportation,
`and so on [1]. Now, with the increasingly accessible Internet,
`online forums have allowed
`people to cross geographical
`boundaries that normally
`constrain the reach of crises
`to share information and
`coordinate citizen-led efforts,
`
`54
`
`March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
`
`

`

`of the population across the U.S., separating
`
`friends, families, and neighborhoods. Even before Kat-
`
`rina made land-
`fall,
`citizen-led
`online sites sprang
`up to aid in emer-
`gency
`planning
`and response. One
`makeshift
`forum
`was Katrina.com
`(www.katrina.com),
`a Web site previ-
`ously used
`to
`advertise a small software consulting business run by
`Katrina Blankenship. Upon the sudden surge in page
`hits from people looking for hurricane information,
`Blankenship swiftly converted her site to serve as a
`resource that included pointers to other Web sites and
`a message board to help locate missing people. Over
`the next five months, the site received 12 million hits
`and remains active today after evolving into a Hurri-
`cane Katrina memorial page and resource for hurri-
`cane preparedness.
`This is one example of the countless forums gener-
`ated by the public follow-
`ing Katrina
`to
`find
`missing people and to
`offer and seek shelter,
`employment, and other
`forms of relief. Some Web
`sites, like Hurricane Infor-
`mation Maps (www.scipi-
`onus.com) were created to
`collect and share location-
`specific information about
`the storm and the damage in its aftermath. Scipionus
`was a visual wiki—a Web site that lets users write and
`edit content—that used a Google map interface on
`which users could textually annotate the status of
`buildings, roadways, and other geographic features in
`the hurricane region. Date- and time-stamping asso-
`ciated with the annotations provided temporal points
`of reference. Figure 1 illustrates how understanding
`the annotations depended on users’ local knowledge
`about the physical environment to fully appreciate
`implications. As with most other online forums, scip-
`ionious.com established a collection of policies and
`norms to guide behavior, though with varying
`amounts of success. For example, users were explicitly
`instructed to not make requests for information on
`
`Figure 2. FluWiki online
`forum description.
`
`56
`
`March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
`
`the map interface, though many continued to do so
`with still others helpfully offering replies.
`
`2003 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES
`The 2003 fire season brought massive wildfires to
`the San Bernardino area of southern California. A
`resident of one of the evacuated mountainous areas,
`who came to be known as “Ranger Al,” did not leave
`the area in spite of warnings—a dangerous problem
`fire personnel regularly face. While on the moun-
`tain, Ranger Al became a point of contact to neigh-
`bors who left. Al would drive from house to house
`to learn which were still standing, and his contacts
`developed a Web site with this information that
`soon received over one million hits a day. This site
`existed in addition to the official incident com-
`mand-run information sources [10].
`
`AVIAN FLU PREPARATION
`Avian influenza, or influenza A (H5N1) is a highly
`lethal strain infectious to humans. The virus cur-
`rently lacks the ability for sustained human-to-
`human transmission, but mutation could change
`this at any time. H5N1 is being compared to
`another avian strain, the agent of the “Spanish flu”
`of 1918–1919, which traversed the world in three
`months and caused an estimated 50 million deaths,
`including approximately 675,000 in the U.S. “The
`question is if we are ready
`for this type of pandemic,
`and the answer is proba-
`bly no…It’s time to get
`ready, and in the process
`be ready for bioterrorism,
`natural disasters, and epi-
`demics of other infectious
`diseases” [1].
`In spite of such warnings, the federal government
`appears to be depending on local governments to
`handle most of the planning and preparation. Even
`under the best of circumstances, much of the success
`of disaster preparedness lies in plans made by house-
`holds; in the wake of the U.S. government’s failure to
`deal adequately with Katrina, Americans have even
`more reason to prepare as though they are “on their
`own.” This background partially explains the high
`level of activity on FluWiki (www.fluwikie.com), a
`grassroots online forum that began in June 2005,
`which describes itself as shown in Figure 2.
`In addition to an encyclopedic collaboratively
`developed knowledge base on topics that include the
`science of influenza, national and international
`plans, personal and family preparedness, documenta-
`tion of rumors, and so on, an active discussion space
`
`Figure 3. Excerpts from a one-day
`discussion on FluWiki.
`
`hosts many messages on surviv-
`ing disasters from personal
`points of view (see Figure 3).
`The wiki has evolved a set of
`guidelines for behavior for par-
`ticipation, emphasizing the site’s
`goals of non-partisanship and
`applicability to an international
`community, itself a regular topic
`of discussion.
`
`IMPLICATIONS FOR THE RELATION-
`SHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND
`FORMAL EFFORTS
`The idealized, linear depiction
`of information dissemination
`around crisis events
`from
`authority to news media to the
`public is clearly outmoded [7].
`As we have briefly discussed
`here, the potential for public
`involvement in our “networked
`world” [5] via online forums is
`only just beginning to be real-
`ized. The reach of the Internet
`expands opportunities for public involvement,
`where those geographically removed from the disas-
`ter—and therefore with the critical resources of
`time, money, electrical power, and working comput-
`ers and telephones in hand—can offer assistance.
`Online forums also create a means for sharing and
`learning from personal stories, experience, and
`
`knowledge in preparation for future events.The Internet and
`
`online forums are
`just one part of this
`evolving communi-
`cation phenomenon
`associated with crisis
`events. The avail-
`ability of mobile,
`networked informa-
`tion communica-
`tion
`technology
`(ICT) in the hands
`of ordinary people makes information exchange
`increasingly potent. For example, mobile phones—
`including camera phones coupled with Short Message
`Service (SMS) messaging and Multimedia Messaging
`
`(MMS)—enable people to quickly share information
`point-to-point. Increasingly inexpensive GPS will
`permit even more exacting location-specific informa-
`tion to be collected “in the field” and shared with oth-
`ers. Recent
`crises
`foreshadow what
`these
`technologically-supported citizen communications
`will come to look like: In the 2001 SARS epidemic in
`China, citizens used SMS text messaging to share
`information that they could not obtain from their
`government [6]. In the July 7, 2005 London subway
`system bombings, commuters used their camera
`phones to take images of the incident, which provided
`hundreds of eyewitness pictures that were soon incor-
`porated into the recovery effort [3]. Society has fre-
`quently depended on the tourist who happens to be in
`the right place with a videocamera in hand for docu-
`mentation of emergencies—the Sept. 11 terrorist
`attacks on the World Trade Center are a notable
`instance of this. In a future in which nearly everyone
`will have a GPS-enabled camera phone in their pock-
`ets, the creation of information and its easy dissemi-
`conscious
`incorporation of
`requires
`nation
`citizens-as-participants in managing emergencies.
`Certainly explicit attention to citizens-as-partici-
`pants is also about managing incorrect information
`that could jeopardize public safety and the recovery
`
`COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3
`
`57
`
`Figure 2. FluWiki online forum description.
`
`The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare
`for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a
`task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health
`agencies. Our goal is to be:
`
`• A reliable source of information, as neutral as possible, about important
` facts useful for a public health approach to pandemic influenza
`• A venue for anticipating the vast range of problems that may arise if a
` pandemic does occur
`• A venue for thinking about implementable solutions to foreseeable problems
`
`Palen fig 2 (3/07)
`
`Figure 3. Excerpts from one-day of discussion on FluWiki.
`
`Who Here Has Lived Through Natural Disasters and What Lessons Did You Learn
`13 July 2006
`preparedness101 – at 12:33
`I find it very worthwhile to learn from others that have gone through natural disasters and see what they
`have learned. For example, those that had lived through ice storms, learned that you need a big enough
`pot to melt snow, they never had enough soup…
`Share your thoughts. Thanks
`
`Kathy in FL – at 12: 47
`Dealt with the results of multiple hurricanes and tropical storms. A couple of notes:
`
`• You never have as much water as you think you do. Doesn’t have to be because you are using it up …
` could be because you thought you had stored more, someone got into your preps so your inventory of
` preps was off, something fell off a counter and ruptured your plastic container, etc.
`• Put duct tape over the toilet handles if your water goes out. Once you teach the kids to “flush” it is a
` hard habit to break…
`
`ColdClimate Prep per – at 13:22
`Not really a “disaster” but last winter we had no power for 4 days due to an ice storm. Temperatures
`were between 0 and 20 degrees F the whole time.
`Lessons learned: - always fill your bathtub with water if you think there is the slightest chance you are
`about to lose power
`- Have plenty of wood on hand at all times!
`- Plan ahead and cook early and do other tasks that require light early…
`- Keep flashlights, or candles and matches handy in every room…
`
`Dusty – at 13: 49
`Living in South Florida, we have “weathered” many hurricanes and tropical storms throughout the years …
`We have a generator that can run our refrigerator, a smaller refrig, lights, tv and window ac …We also
`have propane and butane grills and stoves. Our house is protected with shutters and reinforcements.
`We have supplies of food, water, OTC medication, paper goods etc. We truly have this hurricane thing
`(disaster) pretty organized if anyone has specific questions (same basics as for bf prepping)— there are
`so many things we’ve perfected, that I’d be glad to respond.
`
`The Sar ge – at 13: 55
`Safety, safety, safety!!! - …Candles and kerosene lights are charming - but they are also lit Molotov cocktails
`in your house. Propane and ‘Coleman’ lanterns give off lots of light, but they are attached to a bomb.
`Battery-powered lights are far safer. You can’t have too many batteries.
`
`Palen fig 3 (3/07)
`
`

`

`of the population across the U.S., separating
`
`friends, families, and neighborhoods. Even before Kat-
`
`rina made land-
`fall,
`citizen-led
`online sites sprang
`up to aid in emer-
`gency
`planning
`and response. One
`makeshift
`forum
`was Katrina.com
`(www.katrina.com),
`a Web site previ-
`ously used
`to
`advertise a small software consulting business run by
`Katrina Blankenship. Upon the sudden surge in page
`hits from people looking for hurricane information,
`Blankenship swiftly converted her site to serve as a
`resource that included pointers to other Web sites and
`a message board to help locate missing people. Over
`the next five months, the site received 12 million hits
`and remains active today after evolving into a Hurri-
`cane Katrina memorial page and resource for hurri-
`cane preparedness.
`This is one example of the countless forums gener-
`ated by the public follow-
`ing Katrina
`to
`find
`missing people and to
`offer and seek shelter,
`employment, and other
`forms of relief. Some Web
`sites, like Hurricane Infor-
`mation Maps (www.scipi-
`onus.com) were created to
`collect and share location-
`specific information about
`the storm and the damage in its aftermath. Scipionus
`was a visual wiki—a Web site that lets users write and
`edit content—that used a Google map interface on
`which users could textually annotate the status of
`buildings, roadways, and other geographic features in
`the hurricane region. Date- and time-stamping asso-
`ciated with the annotations provided temporal points
`of reference. Figure 1 illustrates how understanding
`the annotations depended on users’ local knowledge
`about the physical environment to fully appreciate
`implications. As with most other online forums, scip-
`ionious.com established a collection of policies and
`norms to guide behavior, though with varying
`amounts of success. For example, users were explicitly
`instructed to not make requests for information on
`
`Figure 2. FluWiki online
`forum description.
`
`56
`
`March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
`
`the map interface, though many continued to do so
`with still others helpfully offering replies.
`
`2003 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES
`The 2003 fire season brought massive wildfires to
`the San Bernardino area of southern California. A
`resident of one of the evacuated mountainous areas,
`who came to be known as “Ranger Al,” did not leave
`the area in spite of warnings—a dangerous problem
`fire personnel regularly face. While on the moun-
`tain, Ranger Al became a point of contact to neigh-
`bors who left. Al would drive from house to house
`to learn which were still standing, and his contacts
`developed a Web site with this information that
`soon received over one million hits a day. This site
`existed in addition to the official incident com-
`mand-run information sources [10].
`
`AVIAN FLU PREPARATION
`Avian influenza, or influenza A (H5N1) is a highly
`lethal strain infectious to humans. The virus cur-
`rently lacks the ability for sustained human-to-
`human transmission, but mutation could change
`this at any time. H5N1 is being compared to
`another avian strain, the agent of the “Spanish flu”
`of 1918–1919, which traversed the world in three
`months and caused an estimated 50 million deaths,
`including approximately 675,000 in the U.S. “The
`question is if we are ready
`for this type of pandemic,
`and the answer is proba-
`bly no…It’s time to get
`ready, and in the process
`be ready for bioterrorism,
`natural disasters, and epi-
`demics of other infectious
`diseases” [1].
`In spite of such warnings, the federal government
`appears to be depending on local governments to
`handle most of the planning and preparation. Even
`under the best of circumstances, much of the success
`of disaster preparedness lies in plans made by house-
`holds; in the wake of the U.S. government’s failure to
`deal adequately with Katrina, Americans have even
`more reason to prepare as though they are “on their
`own.” This background partially explains the high
`level of activity on FluWiki (www.fluwikie.com), a
`grassroots online forum that began in June 2005,
`which describes itself as shown in Figure 2.
`In addition to an encyclopedic collaboratively
`developed knowledge base on topics that include the
`science of influenza, national and international
`plans, personal and family preparedness, documenta-
`tion of rumors, and so on, an active discussion space
`
`Figure 3. Excerpts from a one-day
`discussion on FluWiki.
`
`hosts many messages on surviv-
`ing disasters from personal
`points of view (see Figure 3).
`The wiki has evolved a set of
`guidelines for behavior for par-
`ticipation, emphasizing the site’s
`goals of non-partisanship and
`applicability to an international
`community, itself a regular topic
`of discussion.
`
`IMPLICATIONS FOR THE RELATION-
`SHIP BETWEEN THE PUBLIC AND
`FORMAL EFFORTS
`The idealized, linear depiction
`of information dissemination
`around crisis events
`from
`authority to news media to the
`public is clearly outmoded [7].
`As we have briefly discussed
`here, the potential for public
`involvement in our “networked
`world” [5] via online forums is
`only just beginning to be real-
`ized. The reach of the Internet
`expands opportunities for public involvement,
`where those geographically removed from the disas-
`ter—and therefore with the critical resources of
`time, money, electrical power, and working comput-
`ers and telephones in hand—can offer assistance.
`Online forums also create a means for sharing and
`learning from personal stories, experience, and
`
`knowledge in preparation for future events.The Internet and
`
`online forums are
`just one part of this
`evolving communi-
`cation phenomenon
`associated with crisis
`events. The avail-
`ability of mobile,
`networked informa-
`tion communica-
`tion
`technology
`(ICT) in the hands
`of ordinary people makes information exchange
`increasingly potent. For example, mobile phones—
`including camera phones coupled with Short Message
`Service (SMS) messaging and Multimedia Messaging
`
`(MMS)—enable people to quickly share information
`point-to-point. Increasingly inexpensive GPS will
`permit even more exacting location-specific informa-
`tion to be collected “in the field” and shared with oth-
`ers. Recent
`crises
`foreshadow what
`these
`technologically-supported citizen communications
`will come to look like: In the 2001 SARS epidemic in
`China, citizens used SMS text messaging to share
`information that they could not obtain from their
`government [6]. In the July 7, 2005 London subway
`system bombings, commuters used their camera
`phones to take images of the incident, which provided
`hundreds of eyewitness pictures that were soon incor-
`porated into the recovery effort [3]. Society has fre-
`quently depended on the tourist who happens to be in
`the right place with a videocamera in hand for docu-
`mentation of emergencies—the Sept. 11 terrorist
`attacks on the World Trade Center are a notable
`instance of this. In a future in which nearly everyone
`will have a GPS-enabled camera phone in their pock-
`ets, the creation of information and its easy dissemi-
`conscious
`incorporation of
`requires
`nation
`citizens-as-participants in managing emergencies.
`Certainly explicit attention to citizens-as-partici-
`pants is also about managing incorrect information
`that could jeopardize public safety and the recovery
`
`COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3
`
`57
`
`Figure 2. FluWiki online forum description.
`
`The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare
`for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a
`task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health
`agencies. Our goal is to be:
`
`• A reliable source of information, as neutral as possible, about important
` facts useful for a public health approach to pandemic influenza
`• A venue for anticipating the vast range of problems that may arise if a
` pandemic does occur
`• A venue for thinking about implementable solutions to foreseeable problems
`
`Palen fig 2 (3/07)
`
`Figure 3. Excerpts from one-day of discussion on FluWiki.
`
`Who Here Has Lived Through Natural Disasters and What Lessons Did You Learn
`13 July 2006
`preparedness101 – at 12:33
`I find it very worthwhile to learn from others that have gone through natural disasters and see what they
`have learned. For example, those that had lived through ice storms, learned that you need a big enough
`pot to melt snow, they never had enough soup…
`Share your thoughts. Thanks
`
`Kathy in FL – at 12: 47
`Dealt with the results of multiple hurricanes and tropical storms. A couple of notes:
`
`• You never have as much water as you think you do. Doesn’t have to be because you are using it up …
` could be because you thought you had stored more, someone got into your preps so your inventory of
` preps was off, something fell off a counter and ruptured your plastic container, etc.
`• Put duct tape over the toilet handles if your water goes out. Once you teach the kids to “flush” it is a
` hard habit to break…
`
`ColdClimate Prep per – at 13:22
`Not really a “disaster” but last winter we had no power for 4 days due to an ice storm. Temperatures
`were between 0 and 20 degrees F the whole time.
`Lessons learned: - always fill your bathtub with water if you think there is the slightest chance you are
`about to lose power
`- Have plenty of wood on hand at all times!
`- Plan ahead and cook early and do other tasks that require light early…
`- Keep flashlights, or candles and matches handy in every room…
`
`Dusty – at 13: 49
`Living in South Florida, we have “weathered” many hurricanes and tropical storms throughout the years …
`We have a generator that can run our refrigerator, a smaller refrig, lights, tv and window ac …We also
`have propane and butane grills and stoves. Our house is protected with shutters and reinforcements.
`We have supplies of food, water, OTC medication, paper goods etc. We truly have this hurricane thing
`(disaster) pretty organized if anyone has specific questions (same basics as for bf prepping)— there are
`so many things we’ve perfected, that I’d be glad to respond.
`
`The Sar ge – at 13: 55
`Safety, safety, safety!!! - …Candles and kerosene lights are charming - but they are also lit Molotov cocktails
`in your house. Propane and ‘Coleman’ lanterns give off lots of light, but they are attached to a bomb.
`Battery-powered lights are far safer. You can’t have too many batteries.
`
`Palen fig 3 (3/07)
`
`

`

`effort. We need to be concerned about problematic
`rumors; privacy protection of information and its
`source; difficulty of coordination with official civic
`agencies; and potential failure of Internet access. Fur-
`thermore, information generated from the “bottom-
`up” without known validation cannot be assured to
`be accurate nor timely nor appropriate for a particu-
`lar audience. For example, on May 3, 2006, at
`11:42 A.M. EDT, a Bulletin for the Pacific was issued
`by NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center Web
`site within 15 minutes of an undersea earthquake,
`declaring a Tsunami Warning for New Zealand and
`Fiji. People in Great Britain read the tsunami warn-
`ing and called to waken their sleeping New Zealand
`friends and relatives, leading to middle-of-the-night
`evacuations. However, less than two hours later, a
`1:36 P.M. EDT bulletin canceled the tsunami warn-
`ing [12]. Such an example illustrates the need for
`design and social mechanisms to vet the validity of
`the data. In fact, we see emerging instances of such
`practices in the case of wildfire management in the
`U.S. West, where some public information officers
`who run official wildfire information Web sites are
`making an effort to align with citizen-led informa-
`tion sites to manage errant rumors and therefore
`compromises to public safety.
`But conscious inclusion of public participation in
`the organizational management of disaster means
`much more than managing “misinformation.” It
`means appreciating from the start that the public has
`always played a primary role in crisis response. ICT
`only reveals to a larger audience the kind of role the
`public already plays in their communities during and
`following such events. The current political trend in
`the U.S., which favors command-and-control-style
`crisis management and neglects to appreciate the role
`the public plays as “first responders” and ongoing par-
`ticipants in such situations, is in danger of failing to
`incorporate citizen activity and citizen-generated
`information in formal warning, response, and relief
`efforts. Our work in the scientific community needs
`to help produce socio-technical solutions that address
`the challenges of interoperability, authenticity, usabil-
`ity, and organizational applicability of citizen-gener-
`ated information. Appropriate, flexible organizational
`structures that can incorporate information from and
`coordinate with multiple sources need to be in place.
`This is the basis for the inclusion of technical solu-
`tions for collecting, validating, and transmitting
`information. Failure to recognize that widely available
`ICT challenges conventional models and demands
`new informational relationships between official
`organizations and the public portends a future where
`c
`crises are ineffectively managed.
`
`58
`
`March 2007/Vol. 50, No. 3 COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM
`
`References
`1. Bartlett, J.G. Planning for avian influenza. Annals of Internal
`Medicine 145, 2 (2006); www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/
`0000605-200607180-00133v1.
`2. Clarke, L. Panic: Myth or reality? Contexts 1, 3 (Fall 2002), 21–26;
`www.contextsmagazine.org/content_sample_v1-3.php.
`3. Cowan, F. Images for your SitRep: Camera phone photos. IAEM-
`Bulletin (August 2005), 5–6.
`4. Hagel, J. and Armstrong, A. Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through
`Virtual Communities. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA,
`1997.
`5. Hiltz, S.R. and Turoff, M. The Network Nation: Human Communi-
`cation via Computer. Addison Wesley, Reading MA, 1978.
`6. Law, P. and Peng, Y. Cellphone, Internet, and the SARS epidemic.
`In Proceedings of the International Workshop on Mobile Technologies
`and Health: Benefits and Risks. (Udine, Italy, 2004), 7–8.
`7. Mileti, D, Sorensen, J, Sorensen, B.V., and Sutton, J. Warning Amer-
`ica. Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center,
`Boulder, CO, 2002.
`8. Palen, L. and Liu, S. Citizen communications in disaster: Anticipat-
`ing a future of ICT-supported public participation. In Proceedings of
`the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
`(CHI ‘07). ACM Press, NY, 2007.
`9. Preece, J. Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Socia-
`bility. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, U.K., 2000.
`10. Taylor, J.G., Gillette, S., Hodgson, R.W., and Downing, J.L. Com-
`municating with Wildland Interface Communities During Wildfire.
`U.S. Dept. of the Interior Geological Survey Open-File Report 2005-
`2061, Fort Collins, CO, 2005.
`11. Tierney, K.J., Lindell, M.K., and Perry, R.W. Facing the Unexpected:
`Disaster Preparedness and Response in the United States. John Henry
`Press, Washington, D.C., 2001.
`12. Wood, P Resolving resilience: CDEM, risks, and information man-
`agement in New Zealand. Keynote address, ISCRAM 2006,
`(Newark, NJ, May, 2006).
`
`Leysia Palen (palen@cs.colorado.edu) is an assistant professor of
`Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she
`is affiliated with the Natural Hazards Center.
`Starr Roxanne Hiltz (hiltz@njit.edu) is a distinguished
`professor of Information Systems at New Jersey Institute of
`Technology, Newark, NJ.
`Sophia B. Liu (Sophia.Liu@colorado.edu) is a Ph.D. student in the
`Alliance for Technology, Learning, and Society (ATLAS) Institute, and
`a research assistant at Natural Hazards Center at the University of
`Colorado at Boulder.
`
`The quote appearing on the first page is from [2].
`
`Support for research appearing in this article conducted by Leysia Palen is provided
`by NSF CAREER Grant No. IIS-0546315. Support for research appearing in this
`article conducted by Starr Roxanne Hiltz is provided by NSF Grant No. 0623047.
`Support for research appearing in this article conducted by Sophia B. Liu is provided
`by NSF Grant Nos. CMS-0408499 and IIS-0331707.
`
`Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or class-
`room use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for
`profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on
`the first page. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to
`lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee.
`
`© 2007 ACM 0001-0782/07/0300 $5.00
`
`