20,000,000 HURRICANE SANDY TWEETS COULD HAVE SAVED LIVES AND BILLIONS

Metropolitan College of New York (MCNY) hosts Social Media and Response Management Interface Event (SMARMIE) to discuss social media technology and emergency management February 28, 2013 at 431 Canal Street, New York, NY.

February 27, 2013 — In 2012, as the use and proliferation of smartphones has exploded, one of the greatest lessons learned in emergency and disaster management is that responders can no longer ignore social media or neglect to include it in emergency planning.

Hurricane Sandy killed at least 125 people in the United States, including 60 in New York (48 of them in New York City), 34 in New Jersey and 16 in Pennsylvania.  If not for the ability to share real time information through social media about evacuations, crises or even to debunk rumor, who knows how many more might have perished?

What is undeniable is that social media technology, targeted and utilized for humanitarian efforts, can harness eyewitness data and information for immediate response coordination during the next disaster.  These cutting edge “Humanitarian Technologies” can now gather the twenty million tweets and 500,000 Instagram images from Hurricane Sandy and deliver life-saving information to victims, first responders, family members, and the media.

“This is a proud moment in the life of MCNY,” said Vinton Thompson, President of Metropolitan College of New York. “It reaffirms MCNY’s position as a leader in higher education for Emergency & Disaster Management and Media Management programs.  We strive to develop the right programs, generate resources and recruit the best in personnel to prepare our student body and arm them with the necessary skills.  We hope that the presentation of this joint venture will influence media and emergency planners on the importance of social media as it relates to crisis planning.”

Metropolitan College of New York’s Emergency and Disaster Management MPA and Media Management MBA programs are joining together with the Association of Contingency Planners, xMatters, MHMT and Judge Consulting, to host SMARMIE (Social Media and Response Management Interface Event) on the critical role of social media in emergency and disaster planning.

SMARMIE is about informing emergency managers, first responders and community leaders about critical social media resources and tools available for managing and planning emergency/disaster response efforts.  On February 28, 2013, the top subject matter experts from around the world on the subjects of digital humanitarian networks, crowd mapping/fencing, social media forensic analytics and other innovative uses of social media in response management are meeting at MCNY for one day at SMARMIE.

SMARMIE is being held at Metropolitan College of New York, located at 431 Canal Street, New York, NY from 8:30am-5:30pm.  If you would like more information about SMARMIE, or to schedule a speaker interview, please visit www.smarmie.com or email Chuck Frank at ecfrank@mcny.edu.  For information about MCNY, visit us at www.mcny.edu.