In The Face of Hurricane Sandy: Well Done Facebook!

The catastrophe of Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc throughout the East Coast of the United States along with several other countries like Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas, Haiti, Eastern Canada, etc. During this whole time, while the cables were gone, social media played its role like never before.

With a billion people using facebook every month and the cellular technology at an all-time high, people shared their worst fears and experiences with the rest of the world via facebook mobile. Photos were being posted every few hours, news updates and prayer messages, every few seconds. The Frankenstorm brewed another storm of global concern over the Facebook.

The tropical wave that developed on October 21, quickly turned into a storm and then a Category 1 hurricane. By October 29, 2012, it was declared a post-tropical cyclone. Within the first few days, several Facebook pages emerged, created on people to people basis, to provide timely news and safety information. For example, one of the Hurricane Sandy pages which started with about 111K people has now acquired over 161K “Likes” and 22,332 people are still talking about it.

By Monday afternoon, about 233,000 photos were posted with “#Sandy” on Instagram, i.e. the Facebook’s mobile photo-sharing service, and another solid 100,000 photos with “#Hurricanesandy.” “Frankenstorm” too got tagged to about 20,000 photos and that figure has now grown exponentially.

According to the data provided by Facebook to CNN; “prayers,” “praying,” “stay safe,” “be safe,” “my friends” were the most used references on social network along with “storm,” “Sandy,” “hurricane,” “East Coast,” “power,” and “winds” over the weekend.

All these happenings on Facebook related to the natural disaster prove the worth of social media as being a valid and viable source of knowledge. Original posts once uploaded spread like a virus. It is, indeed, one of the best sources to disseminate any kind of information, be it useful or useless. But in these testing times, facebook is nothing less than a blessing which is available even during the unavailability of basic provisions and the destruction of houses, cars, electricity, etc.

Let us know how well you agree, or disagree, with our point-of-view in this regard. If you are one of the victims of the terrible hurricane, or know anyone who suffered through it, please share with us in the comments below.

May God’s blessings be with you forever!