Hurricane Sandy hits the East Coast today but no one can say they didn't have information. Every major event reveals the increasing depth of information available online.
This article from Poynter shows how journalists, struggling to be the sources of news for residents in the face of crowd information sharing, are creatively presenting storm information. This includes live video, graphically demonstrating wind power and direction, and combining information from multiple sources.
Google's Crisis Map makes instantly clear where the shelters are, and of course, if needed their People Finder service will help people find each other or communicate their status.
And ESRI, a provider of GIS-based emergency systems, provides a helpful map combining historical and current information about hurricanes.
Those using digital communications (the Internet in all its forms) have rich sources of real time information from which to make informed decisions. The question is, are emergency managers also using this information to make intelligent decisions as well?
UPDATE
From idisaster2.0 comes this interesting official application of crowd-mapping. This will be important to follow to see the results of Fairfax County's effort to integrate crowd sources of information into their operations. Great to see this happening.
UPDATE 2
