[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EMERGENCY MGMT 2.0: HOW #SOCIALMEDIA &
NEW TECH ARE TRANSFORMING PREPAREDNESS,
RESPONSE, & RECOVERY #DISASTERS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY
PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE,
AND COMMUNICATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 4, 2013 and JULY 9, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-20
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Homeland Security
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TONGRESS.#13
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/
__________
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20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY
Michael T. McCaul, Texas, Chairman
Lamar Smith, Texas Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Peter T. King, New York Loretta Sanchez, California
Mike Rogers, Alabama Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Paul C. Broun, Georgia Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Candice S. Miller, Michigan, Vice Brian Higgins, New York
Chair Cedric L. Richmond, Louisiana
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania William R. Keating, Massachusetts
Jeff Duncan, South Carolina Ron Barber, Arizona
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Dondald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Jason Chaffetz, Utah Beto O'Rourke, Texas
Steven M. Palazzo, Mississippi Tulsi Gabbard, Hawaii
Lou Barletta, Pennsylvania Filemon Vela, Texas
Chris Stewart, Utah Steven A. Horsford, Nevada
Richard Hudson, North Carolina Eric Swalwell, California
Steve Daines, Montana
Susan W. Brooks, Indiana
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania
Mark Sanford, South Carolina
Greg Hill, Chief of Staff
Michael Geffroy, Deputy Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel
Michael S. Twinchek, Chief Clerk
I. Lanier Avant, Minority Staff Director
Mr. Mark Sanford of South Carolina was elected to the committee
on June 12, 2013.
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, AND COMMUNICATIONS
Susan W. Brooks, Indiana, Chairwoman
Peter T. King, New York Donald M. Payne, Jr., New Jersey
Tom Marino, Pennsylvania Yvette D. Clarke, New York
Steven M. Palazzo, Mississippi Brian Higgins, New York
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Bennie G. Thompson, Mississippi
Mark Sanford, South Carolina (ex officio)
Michael T. McCaul, Texas (ex
officio)
Eric B. Heighberger, Subcommittee Staff Director
Deborah Jordan, Subcommittee Clerk
On June 12, 2013, Mr. Tom Marino of Pennsylvania resigned as a
Member of the subcommittee and Mr. Mark Sanford of South
Carolina was appointed to the vacancy.
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
JUNE 4, 2013
Statements
The Honorable Susan W. Brooks, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Indiana, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Emergency
Preparedness, Response, and Communications:
Oral Statement................................................. 1
Prepared Statement............................................. 3
The Honorable Donald M. Payne, Jr., a Representative in Congress
From the State of New Jersey, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications:
Oral Statement................................................. 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 5
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Prepared Statement............................................. 6
Witnesses
Mr. Matthew Stepka, Vice President, Technology for Social Impact,
Google.org:
Oral Statement................................................. 7
Prepared Statement............................................. 9
Mr. Jason Matthew Payne, Philanthropy Lead, Palantir
Technologies:
Oral Statement................................................. 16
Prepared Statement............................................. 18
Mr. Michael Beckerman, President and CEO, The Internet
Association:
Oral Statement................................................. 19
Prepared Statement............................................. 21
Mr. Jorge L. Cardenas, Vice President, Asset Management and
Centralized Services, Public Service Electric and Gas Company:
Oral Statement................................................. 27
Prepared Statement............................................. 29
For the Record
The Honorable Donald M. Payne, Jr., a Representative in Congress
From the State of New Jersey, and Ranking Member, Subcommittee
on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications:
Prepared Statement of Christine Thompson, President and Co-
Founder of Humanity Road..................................... 47
Prepared Statement of BEOC Alliance............................ 49
JULY 9, 2013
Statements
The Honorable Susan W. Brooks, a Representative in Congress From
the State of Indiana, and Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Emergency
Preparedness, Response, and Communications:
Oral Statement................................................. 52
Prepared Statement............................................. 54
The Honorable Eric Swalwell, a Representative in Congress From
the State of California:
Oral Statement................................................. 59
Prepared Statement............................................. 61
The Honorable Bennie G. Thompson a Representative in Congress
From the State of Mississippi, and Ranking Member, Committee on
Homeland Security:
Prepared Statement............................................. 63
Witnesses
Mr. Shayne Adamski, Senior Manager of Digital Engagement, Federal
Emergency Management Agency, U.S. Department of Homeland
Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 64
Prepared Statement............................................. 66
Ms. Suzanne C. DeFrancis, Chief Public Affairs Officer, American
Red Cross:
Oral Statement................................................. 74
Prepared Statement............................................. 76
Mr. Albert Ashwood, Director, Oklahoma Department of Emergency
Management:
Oral Statement................................................. 83
Prepared Statement............................................. 84
Mr. W. Greg Kierce, Director, Jersey City Office of Emergency
Management and Homeland Security:
Oral Statement................................................. 88
Prepared Statement............................................. 92
Appendix
Question From Chairwoman Susan W. Brooks for Shayne Adamski...... 113
Question From Chairwoman Susan W. Brooks for Albert Ashwood...... 113
EMERGENCY MGMT 2.0: HOW #SOCIALMEDIA & NEW TECH ARE TRANSFORMING
PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, & RECOVERY #DISASTERS #PART1 #PRIVATESECTOR
----------
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response,
and Communications,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Susan W. Brooks
[Chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Brooks, King, Palazzo, Perry,
Payne, and Clarke.
Mrs. Brooks. The Committee on Homeland Security's
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and
Communications will come to order.
The subcommittee is meeting today to examine the impact
social media and new technology is having on disaster
preparedness, response, and recovery.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
In today's technology-driven world, social media and other
types of new technology are becoming one of the primary ways we
receive, process, and relay information.
Studies have shown that more than 60% of the people in the
United States have at least one social media account, with many
having multiple accounts to include Facebook pages, Twitter
profiles, and Pinterest boards.
While social media originally started out as a way to share
information among family and friends, it is evident that it has
evolved to serve other functions, such as prevalent sources for
news, advertising, and entertainment.
But another evolving and very important role, and the
subject of this hearing, is its use in preparing for,
responding to, and recovering from disasters.
We have heard numerous stories from Hurricane Sandy and the
Boston bombings of how citizens used Facebook, Twitter, and
Instagram to relay information to first responders, communicate
with loved ones, and request assistance when cell phone service
was unavailable.
According to the 2013 National Preparedness Report, which
was released by FEMA last week, during Hurricane Sandy, ``Users
sent more than 20 million Sandy-related Twitter posts, or
`tweets,' despite the loss of cell phone service during the
peak of the storm.''
We have also seen how response organizations are using
social media to quickly share public safety information and
maintain direct communication with disaster survivors during
and after an incident.
The Center for Naval Analysis conducted a survey of the use
of social media by emergency management agencies and found that
77 percent of survey respondents use social media, with 55
percent setting the goal of monitoring social media during an
event.
Even just last month during the devastating tornado in
Oklahoma, the cities of Moore and Oklahoma City used their
Twitter accounts, their cities' Twitter accounts, to relay
real-time updates on open shelters, road closures, lost-and-
found pets, and personal items. They also actively monitored
their Twitter accounts and responded to requests for assistance
posted by disaster survivors.
I personally found that during the severe flooding that
occurred in my district in Indiana in April, the Indiana
Department of Homeland Security also used Facebook and Twitter
to relay information to my constituents, such as how to report
damage, where to get assistance, which was very effective and
proved to be more efficient than using traditional media
avenues, like television and radio. I also personally posted on
my Facebook page to inform constituents about the flooding and
the Federal assistance that was available.
Social media is not the only thing that is transforming how
we prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In
January of this year, I had the opportunity to travel to
Silicon Valley with some of my colleagues, and on that trip, we
met with companies that were on the leading edge of new
technology that are also contributing to the preparation for,
response to, and recovery from disasters.
Two of these amazing companies are here today, Google and
Palantir, and it was amazing to see the innovation and the
ingenuity being used by the private sector.
It gave me hope, filled me with excitement to sit with
representatives from these companies, learn about not only what
they are doing, but what they are planning and what they are
thinking about for the future.
The management of ``big data'' and the use of social media
provide enormous opportunities for efficiency in emergency
management, and I believe that these companies and
organizations before us can make a difference in how this
country is able to prepare for and respond to disasters.
While there are numerous examples of how social media and
new technology have enhanced emergency management activities, I
would be remiss to not also point out that there can be some
pitfalls of which we need to be wary.
For example, recent events have shown us how misleading,
faulty, or even malicious information can escalate quickly on
social media sites and negatively affect response efforts.
We have also seen that social media can be used to spread
messages of hate. Immediately after the recent terror attack
for instance in London, the attackers actually engaged those
who had cameras knowing that their message would make its way
to YouTube and be broadcast around the world.
We also must be cognizant on the limitations of technology,
such as its reliance on power sources and internet connections.
But I am very pleased today to be welcoming our
distinguished panel of witnesses and we look forward to hearing
your perspectives again, on particularly the private sector's
involvement with Government in preparation, response to, and
recovery in disasters.
[The statement of Chairwoman Brooks follows:]
Statement of Chairwoman Susan W. Brooks
In today's technology-driven world, social media, and other types
of new technology are becoming one of the primary ways we receive,
process, and relay information. Studies have shown that more than 60%
of the people in the United States have at least one social media
account, with many having multiple accounts to include Facebook pages,
Twitter profiles, and Pinterest boards. While social media originally
started out as a way to share information among friends, it is evident
that it has evolved to serve other functions, such as a prevalent
source for news, advertising, and entertainment.
Another evolving role, and the subject of this hearing, is its use
in preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. We have
heard numerous stories from Hurricane Sandy and the Boston bombings of
how citizens used Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to relay information
to first responders, communicate with love ones, and request assistance
when cell phone service was unavailable. According to the 2013 National
Preparedness Report, which was released by FEMA last week, during
Hurricane Sandy, ``users sent more than 20 million Sandy-related
Twitter posts, or `tweets,' despite the loss of cell phone service
during the peak of the storm.''
We have also seen how response organizations are using social media
to quickly share public safety information and maintain direct
communication with disaster survivors during and after an incident. The
Center for Naval Analyses conducted a survey of the use of social media
by emergency management agencies and found that 77 percent of survey
respondents use social media, with 55 percent setting the goal of
monitoring social media during an event.
For example, during the devastating tornado in Oklahoma last month,
the cities of Moore and Oklahoma City used their Twitter accounts to
relay real-time updates on open shelters, road closures, lost-and-found
pets, and personal items. They also actively monitored their Twitter
accounts and responded to requests for assistance posted by disaster
survivors.
I personally found that during the severe flooding that occurred in
my district in April, the Indiana Department of Homeland Security used
Facebook and Twitter to relay information to my constituents, such as
how to report damage and where to get assistance, which was very
effective and proved to be more efficient than using traditional media
avenues, like television and radio. I personally posted information on
my Facebook page to inform constituents about the flooding and Federal
assistance available.
Social media is not the only thing that is transforming how we
prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters. In January of this
year, I had the opportunity to travel to Silicon Valley with some of my
colleagues. On that trip, we met with companies on the leading edge of
new technology that are also contributing to the preparation, response,
and recovery from disasters--two are represented here today, Google and
Palantir. It was amazing to see the innovation and ingenuity being used
by the private sector. It gave me hope and filled me with excitement to
sit with representatives from these companies and talk not only about
what they are doing, but what they are planning and thinking about for
the future. The management of ``big data'' and the use of social media
provide enormous opportunities for efficiencies in emergency management
and I believe that these companies and organizations before us can make
a difference in how this country is able to prepare for and respond to
disasters.
While there are numerous examples of how social media and new
technology have enhanced emergency management activities, I would be
remiss to not point out that there are pitfalls of which we need to be
wary. For example, recent events have shown us how misleading, faulty,
or malicious information can escalate quickly on social media sites and
negatively affect response efforts. We have also seen that social media
can be used to spread messages of hate. Immediately after the recent
terror attack in London the attackers actually engaged those with
cameras knowing that their message would make its way to YouTube and
broadcast around the world. We must also be cognizant on the
limitations of technology, such as its reliance on power sources and
internet connections.
I am pleased to welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses and
look forward to hearing your perspectives on this topic.
Mrs. Brooks. I now will recognize the gentleman from New
Jersey, Mr. Payne for any opening statement you might have.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Good morning.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today
and Chairwoman Brooks for holding these series of hearings.
The internet has changed the world. It has changed how a
Government serves its citizens and how businesses serve its
customers and how the public engages in the political and
social action.
During recent disasters from Hurricane Sandy to Boston
Marathon bombings, the internet was used to galvanize ordinary
citizens. After the Boston Marathon bombings, Boston residents
used Google Docs to let marathoners know that their homes were
open to those who were unable to get back to their hotels.
After Hurricane Sandy, survivors used Twitter and Facebook
to post images of the devastation caused by the storm.
Survivors also used social media to reconnect with love ones
and share information about gas stations, grocery stores, and
pharmacies that were available.
Others used social media to coordinate volunteer response
and aid efforts. Clearly, social media and ``big data'' have
revolutionized disaster preparedness and response activities.
The FEMA's 2013 National Preparedness Report, which was
released last week, found that emergency management agencies
are increasingly using social media to disseminate information
and are exploring additional applications of social media.
The same report also found progress in the use of
information management systems and on-going data integration
efforts to improve information sharing and situation awareness.
As Members of the Committee on Homeland Security and the
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness Response Communications,
we sit in a unique position as internet technology evolves and
the world continues to change around us.
Our role requires us to help the Federal Government, State,
and local first responders and the private sector harness the
potential that the internet technology can bring to bear in
disaster preparedness and response activities while working to
mitigate the inherent limitations of the technology.
Despite the benefits social media can yield, we know that
technology can be used to spread misinformation. We know social
media and web data are vulnerable to hacking and misuse.
We know that unless data is integrated and organized
properly and shared with the right people, it is useless, and
we know that unless someone has the internet, none of this
information is going to reach them. During disasters it is
critical the information be accurate, secure, and accessible.
I look forward to exploring these issues with our private-
sector witnesses today. By launching rumor control, a website
devoted to correcting misinformation circulated by social media
sites, FEMA has begun to tackle some of these issues, but I
think the witnesses here today have valuable insight to offer.
I know the PSE&G was recently recognized for innovative use
of social media during Hurricane Sandy. I know that PSE&G
participates in the Business Emergency Operation Center
Alliance in New Jersey which facilitates public and private
information sharing during disasters. Their good work should
provide valuable information on best practices to improve the
use of social media during major disasters.
I look forward to the testimony of all of our witnesses
here today, and I yield back the balance of my time.
[The statement of Ranking Member Payne follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Donald M. Payne, Jr.
June 4, 2013
The internet has changed the world--it has changed how the
Government serves its citizens, how businesses serve its customers, and
how the public engages in political and social action.
During recent disasters--from Hurricane Sandy to the Boston
Marathon bombings--the internet was used to galvanize ordinary
citizens. After the Boston Marathon bombings, Boston-residents used
Google Docs to let marathoners know that their homes were open to those
unable to return to their hotels.
After Hurricane Sandy, survivors used Twitter and Facebook to post
images of the devastation caused by the storm.
Survivors also used social media to reconnect with loved ones and
share information about open gas stations, grocery stores, and
pharmacies. Others used social media to coordinate volunteer response
and aid efforts.
Clearly, social media and big data have revolutionized disaster
preparedness and response activities.
The FEMA's 2013 National Preparedness Report, which was released
last week, found that emergency management agencies are increasingly
using social media to disseminate information and are exploring
additional applications of social media. The same report also found
progress in the use of information management systems and on-going data
integration efforts to improve information sharing and situational
awareness.
As Members of the Committee on Homeland Security and the
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications,
we sit in a unique position as internet technology evolves and the
world continues to change around us.
Our role requires us to help the Federal Government, State and
local first responders, and the private sector harness the potential
that internet technology can bring to bear in disaster preparedness and
response activities, while working to mitigate the inherent limitations
of the technology.
Despite the benefits social media can yield, we know that the
technology can be used to spread misinformation. We know that social
media and web data are vulnerable to hacking and misuse.
We know that unless data is integrated and organized properly and
shared with the right people, it is useless. And we know that unless
someone has internet access, none of this information is going to reach
them.
During disasters, it is critical the information be accurate,
secure, and accessible.
I look forward to exploring these issues with our private-sector
witnesses today. By launching Rumor Control, a website devoted to
correcting misinformation circulated by social media sites, FEMA has
begun to tackle some of these issues.
But I think that the witnesses here today have valuable insight to
offer. I know the PSE&G was recently recognized for its innovative use
of social media during Hurricane Sandy. And I know that PSE&G
participates in the Business Emergency Operations Center Alliance in
New Jersey, which facilitates public-private information sharing during
disasters. Their good work should provide valuable information on best
practices to improve the use of social media and big data during
disasters.
Mrs. Brooks. Other Members of the committee are reminded
that opening statements may be submitted for the record.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
I have served on this committee for over a decade. During that
time, I have witnessed natural disasters and terrorist attacks. And I
have seen the use of social media evolve as a tool in our efforts to
keep this Nation safe.
When you compare the response following Hurricane Katrina with the
response following Hurricane Sandy, it is clear that both the
Government and the public have grown increasingly adept at integrating
social media into emergency response activities.
The advent of social media has provided the general public with new
avenues for sharing information and organizing private response
activities.
And social media allows the Government and private sector to
disseminate useful information to hundreds of thousands of people. We
cannot underestimate the value of useful, accurate information before,
during, and after a disaster. It can save lives.
So while I support the innovative use of social media and big data
in disaster preparedness and response, we must be certain that this
technology is not only used appropriately and effectively, but also
that the information distributed is reliable.
I was particularly troubled by misinformation that circulated after
the Boston Marathon bombings, which incorrectly identified a missing
man as a possible suspect.
And while I am not advocating censorship, I am concerned that
social media may not have the appropriate policies in place to ensure
either that disaster-related information is accurate, or that
inaccurate information is quickly removed.
Additionally, I have concerns about how law enforcement uses social
media in executing investigations. We must take some reasonable steps
to assure that the users of social media have a clear understanding of
privacy rights and protections.
Although an expectation of privacy in personal information placed
on social media networks may not be reasonable, there is a reasonable
expectation that the information will not be used to engage in data
mining or otherwise target individuals who are exercising
Constitutionally-protected rights.
Mrs. Brooks. We are very pleased to have a very
distinguished panel before us today for this important topic.
First on the panel is Mr. Matthew Stepka, the vice
president of Google.org. In this role, Mr. Stepka leads social
impact efforts at Google including Google.org, Google Giving,
Google Ideas, Google Green, Elections & Politics, Google for
Non-Profits, and Crisis Response.
Since joining Google in 2007, Mr. Stepka has led efforts in
areas ranging from expanding internet access, developing clean
energy, and extending Google's footprint in emerging markets.
Next on the panel is Mr. Jason Payne who serves as the head
of the philanthropy engineering team at Palantir technologies.
Mr. Payne manages the implementation of Palantir's
philanthropic endeavors and has extensive experience with
counterterrorism and counter insurgency missions as well as of
the rule of law and counter corruption efforts.
Mr. Michael Beckerman is the president and CEO of the
Internet Association, a Washington, DC trade association
representing some of the most well-known global internet
brands. Prior to his appointment as CEO, Mr. Beckerman served
as 12 years as a Congressional staff member serving on the
House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
I would ask Ranking Member Payne to please introduce our
next panelist.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and
just for full disclosure to the committee, Mr. Payne and I are
not related.
Mr. Payne. Thank you.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Thank you.
Our final witness is George Cardenas, vice president of
asset management and central services at PSE&G.
In this role, he is responsible for electric and gas asset
strategy and reliability, electric delivery planning, unit
business performance and improvement, and utility operation
services among other things.
Prior to this position, Mr. Cardenas was the vice president
for gas delivery with responsibility for providing gas delivery
and appliance repair services to 1.8 million public service
electric and gas customers.
He is recognized as a champion for health and safety in the
workplace. He sits on the leadership council of the American
Gas Association and serves on the Board of Directors of the
Northeast Gas Association and has honored with the New Jersey
Minority Achievers award in 2004.
Mr. Cardenas received his bachelor's degree in engineering
from the Stevens Institute of Technology and completed the Penn
State Executive Development program.
He received his masters of business administration degree
from Rutgers University Executive MBA program, and given his
impressive background, there is no surprise that he is part of
the leadership innovating to provide the best customer
communications during disaster.
Public Service Electric and Gas was recently recognized by
CS Week and JD Power Associates for its innovative use of
social media during Hurricane Sandy and is a member of the BEOC
Alliance, which facilitates communications among the private
sector during disasters.
I am grateful for Public Service Electric and Gas' efforts,
and I am happy to have Mr. Cardenas here to talk about Public
Service Electric and Gas and about my home State of New
Jersey--are on the cutting edge of using the new technology
during disasters, which we are very proud of.
Thank you.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
The witness' full written statements will appear in the
record.
The Chairwoman now recognizes and Mr. Stepka for 5 minutes
for your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF MATTHEW STEPKA, VICE PRESIDENT, TECHNOLOGY FOR
SOCIAL IMPACT, GOOGLE.ORG
Mr. Stepka. Chairwoman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and
Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today and for your interest in the importance
of internet-based technology and disaster preparedness,
response, and recovery.
My name is Matthew Stepka. I am vice president of
technology for social impact, a part of Google where we use
trends and information and technology to address global
challenges and make a lasting impact.
We have learned that people turn to the internet when there
is an emergency. We want to help ensure that the right
information is there when people need it.
In the first half of this year alone, millions of people
around the world have been affected by natural disasters. Just
2 weeks ago, we witnessed the devastating the power of
tornadoes raging across Oklahoma. Our hearts go out to all of
the individuals affected by these disasters.
Our goal is to make it easier to get people the actionable
emergency information they need when they need it most. We do
this by organizing emergency alerts, news updates, and missing
persons information, building tools that enable better
communication and collaboration among responders and those
affected by crisis, providing updated satellite imagery and
maps of affected areas, and donating to charitable
organizations that are on the ground helping to provide direct
relief.
As a result of our work, we have learned a number of
lessons about the space. The first is that people want to find
critical information through a familiar technology. So we
collect and curate relevant information and make it available
on Google tools where it is most effective.
We add essential phone numbers, add links to the top of our
search results, we place links on our home page, we create maps
that show information from authorities and communities, and
provide tools to help people connect with loved ones in the
aftermath of disasters.
We are able to do this thanks to the innovative technology
all around us, and more and more things through the ubiquity of
mobile devices. Via smartphones, we are able to send our users
critical notifications that are relevant to them in near-real
time based on the location and the conditions around them.
One of our services, public alerts, compiles and displays
authoritative emergency information across Google properties
based on user's locations or search query.
Four days before the Sandy storm hit the East Coast, users
who typed in terms like Sandy, hurricane, high wind into Google
search started seeing an official National Weather Service
warning containing a link to more information including maps,
news, and how to stay safe.
Recently through a partnership with the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, we started publishing Amber
Alerts using the same public alerts platform.
When you receive a message on your phone about a child who
just went missing in your neighborhood or a tornado that is
forming nearby, the first thing you will do is search for more
information, which we can help you find.
We also pulled crisis maps which compile authoritative
emergency information from multiple sources into one single map
so people no longer have to search across many websites.
Following the Oklahoma tornadoes, for example, our team
launched a crisis map that included Red Cross shelters, traffic
alerts, storm reports, post-disaster imagery, and other
information.
A second lesson is that crowdsourcing can enhance both
quality and timeliness of critical information. Anyone can use
Google mapping services to create their own maps and even host
their content and data in a scalable way. Because they are
open-source, anyone can employ, update, and improve our tools.
We have learned during some disasters, authoritative
sources may not have as expansive information as individuals on
the ground do. For example, do filling stations have gasoline?
To answer that question during Sandy, a group of student
volunteers called stations in New Jersey to check whether they
were open and had gas available.
Within a few days they had data for more than 1,000
different stations, which was fed into our Sandy crisis map
automatically. The Department of Energy's call center ended up
referencing this information.
A third lesson is that we learned, critical for emergency
information to be available, it should be open and on-line
formats.
So open and secure formats which have open licenses before
a disaster. This is critical. In the past, Google has had to
gather emergency information from websites in non-structured
and difficult to automate formats such as texts and PDFs and
translate them into open standards.
When data is not in open formats, many steps are required
to share it and each extra step can keep critical information
from getting to people in a timely manner.
This is why we advocate using an open, secure, and common
standard so that everyone has a consistent way to receive and
share alerting information and to create useful visualization
of the content.
Data providers that follow these practices could update
their information automatically making it available on-line
securely within seconds.
The Government can help by ensuring that important
emergency information is available in open, interoperable
formats. We commend the White House for the recent Executive
Order requiring the Federal Government data to be made
available in open machine readable formats by default. We also
welcome steps Congress has taken to increase access to
Government data.
We hope that agencies with emergency information in
particular begin adopting these standards and licensing terms
as soon as possible.
It is through open data that we are able to develop
innovative alerts and other new products. With more open and
secure data we can display more consistent and more actionable
alerts covering things like power outages and road closures
where there are floods. We can also send specific evacuation
instructions to different people based on their location.
We still have a long way to go, but we look forward to
working alongside emergency relief organizations and
governments to help people find the information they are
looking for during disasters.
Thank you very much for your time. I am happy to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stepka follows:]
Prepared Statement of Matthew Stepka
June 4, 2013
Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and Members of the
subcommittee: Thank you for your interest in the importance of
internet-based technology in disaster preparedness, response, and
recovery. My name is Matthew Stepka, and I am honored to appear before
you on behalf of Google. As vice president of technology for social
impact, I lead our efforts to develop technologies to help address
global challenges, including our Crisis Response initiatives.
In the first half of this year alone, millions of people around the
world have been affected by natural disasters in places like Iran,
China, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, and Myanmar. Here at home, just 2
weeks ago, we witnessed the devastating power of tornadoes raging
across Oklahoma. Our hearts go out to all of the individuals affected
by these disasters.
When emergencies like these arise, people turn to the internet for
information. Google wants to help ensure that the right information is
there in their time of need. So we build tools to collect and share
emergency information, and we support first responders in using
technology to help improve and save lives.
Google Crisis Response has been responding to natural disasters
since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, making information such as storm
paths, shelter locations, evacuation orders or zones, and donation
opportunities easily accessible. More recently, Hurricane Sandy
catalyzed a broader awareness of how the internet can play a critical
role in crisis response. As that storm approached and then struck the
East Coast last fall, our team at Google put everyday tools like Google
Search and Google Maps to use, sharing emergency weather updates, maps
of the storm path, shelters, and evacuation zones, and many other kinds
of information across our services. For those of us with loved ones
affected by the storm, being able to follow updates of that crisis on-
line in near-real time was invaluable.
During a disaster, our Crisis Response team follows the lead of
emergency relief organizations, Government agencies, and first
responders with the goal of supporting them with services that make it
easier to get people the actionable emergency information they need
when they need it most. The types of activities we might initiate
include:
organizing emergency alerts, news updates, and missing
person information, and making this information visible through
our web properties;
building tools that enable better communication and
collaboration among crisis responders and those affected by the
crisis;
providing updated satellite imagery and maps of affected
areas to illustrate infrastructure damage and help relief
organizations navigate disaster zones;
donating to charitable organizations that are providing
direct relief on the ground.
Each time, we learn more about how governments, organizations, and
companies can maximize the potential of the internet to assist in
disaster preparedness and relief by providing access to actionable
information. We believe that applying the lessons of our continual
learning in this area can improve the use of technology in crisis
response.
observations and best practices
1. People want to find critical information through familiar
technology.
We know that during disasters, people look on-line to learn how to
stay safe and we want to ensure that the right information is there in
their time of need. In the wake of the earthquake in Sendai, Japan, 2
years ago, we saw a massive spike in search queries coming from Hawaii
for information about a tsunami. Unfortunately, the immediate results
were not providing all the information those users needed because
authoritative sources did not share that information in easily
discoverable ways. So last year we launched a product called Public
Alerts to make authoritative emergency information easier for our users
to find. Through partnerships with Government agencies and other
authoritative information providers, we are able to collate critical
alerting information and provide instructions for how to prepare for
severe weather conditions and other events such as wildfires and
earthquakes.
In incorporating public alert data from authoritative, trusted
sources into Google Search, Google Maps, and other Google properties,
we hope to simplify the process of finding critical emergency
information. In order to provide the most relevant alerts to our users,
the alert you see (if any) may depend on what alerts are active at a
given location, their severity, your search query, your default
location settings, or your device location.
Four days before Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, we began
providing an alert for users who typed terms like ``Sandy,''
``hurricane,'' or ``high wind'' into our search box. An official
National Weather Service warning appeared with a link to more
information, including maps, news, contextual information, and steps
people could take to keep themselves safe. To scale this initiative, we
are currently working with official U.S. agencies, such as the National
Weather Service and the Geological Survey, to show relevant alerts to
Google users, and we welcome partnerships with other agencies--domestic
and international--who publish authoritative alerts.
We also developed an application called Crisis Map that uses our
Maps technology to help people find information before, during, and
after major emergency events. We use Crisis Map to provide
authoritative information such as evacuation routes, hurricane tracks,
disaster-related satellite imagery, and emergency alerts, by compiling
it from multiple data sources. People no longer have to search across
many websites for different pieces of relevant information because
Crisis Map makes all of the data available in one central place and
allows both agencies and individuals to create their own rich mash-ups
of crisis data.
As Hurricane Sandy approached landfall, we launched a general
Crisis Map with several Sandy-related layers, including current and
forecasted storm locations and information about cloud and wind
conditions courtesy of NOAA's National Hurricane Center, and Public
Alerts featuring emergency information like evacuation routes. We also
launched a Crisis Map specific to New York City, featuring evacuation
zone data from the NYC Datamine, information about open shelters, and
footage from live webcams. Throughout the recovery period, our Crisis
Maps had 15 million unique visits, with 10-20% of the visits coming
through mobile phones and 80% of the traffic being referred through
third parties--meaning that the maps were either shared by users or
embedded in other sites.
2. Crowdsourcing can enhance both quality and timeliness of critical
information.
Do local filling stations have gasoline? On this kind of question,
authoritative sources often may not have as extensive intelligence on
the ground as individuals do. Anyone can use Google's mapping tools--on
our servers, or their own--to create their own maps and even host their
content and data in a scalable way. In addition, by enabling user-
generated content in Crisis Maps during Hurricane Sandy, we were able
to share better updates than those we got from only official sources.
While some organizations contacted us with their data for our
Hurricane Sandy Crisis Map, other map curators and data providers
created their own crowd-sourced maps to address challenges they
identified locally. For example, Dr. Wansoo Im mobilized a group of
student volunteers to call local gas stations in New Jersey to see
whether or not they were open and check if gas was available. Within a
few days, they had data from more than 1,000 different stations. After
doing some additional research on-line, they put the information into a
KML layer (a machine readable and crawlable format used to describe
geographic information) and continued to update it through mobile
devices and edits on desktop. The KML layer was fed into Crisis Map
automatically and through user commenting, people were able to correct
and update the gas layers when they became out-of-date. The Department
of Energy ended up referencing information from this map for people who
dialed their call centers.
We also designed our Person Finder tool to empower individuals in
the wake of emergencies. Person Finder is a web application that allows
people to post and search for the status of relatives or friends
affected by a disaster. By using an open data standard, the tool lets
press agencies, non-governmental agencies, and others contribute to the
database and receive updates. Websites can choose to embed Person
Finder as a gadget on their own pages. Because it is open-source
software, any developer can create her own instance of Person Finder
after a disaster and help us improve the product.
Before, those seeking missing loved ones had to sift through
multiple websites, posting the same inquiries over and over, hoping
that the person in question happened to register with one of these
websites. After the earthquake in Haiti, for example, we noticed there
were 14 separate missing persons databases spontaneously set up by
different groups, including non-governmental organizations, newspapers,
and volunteers. They were all running on different infrastructure, were
not integrated, and all had different amounts of data that, if
coordinated, could have comprised all missing persons records.
To make this process more effective and efficient, while continuing
to leverage the power of crowd-sourced information, our team built
Person Finder to act as a central database, pulling the feeds from all
14 databases and allowing users to search across all their records.
Person Finder accepts information in a common machine-readable format
called PFIF (People Finder Interchange Format), which was created by
Hurricane Katrina volunteers in 2005 and allows press agencies, NGOs,
and others to sync their own data sources to Person Finder.
Our team worked around the clock to build and launch Person Finder
in less than 72 hours during the early days of the crisis in Haiti. We
have now made this resource available in more than 40 languages. The
product is purposefully simple, fast, and easy to use. More
importantly, it is backed by an open programmatic interface, or API.
This means that different sites can update missing persons lists
automatically using the common format. Because of this, The New York
Times, CNN, NPR, and a number of other websites quickly integrated
Person Finder, increasing its reach and resulting in a more complete
list of missing persons.
We have since launched Person Finder for a number of emergencies,
both natural and man-made. For example, within an hour after bombs went
off in Boston 2 months ago, we initiated an instance of Person Finder
to help people locate loved ones or let family and friends know they
were alright. In total, we hosted thousands of records after the
tragedy. In all these emergencies, we have found that crowdsourced
information has been crucial to provide individuals updates about their
loved ones.
3. Emergency information should be available on-line in open formats
and with open licenses before a disaster.
To be easily integrated and disseminated in the event of a crisis,
emergency information must be readily available--in open formats, open
licensing structures, and already on-line--in advance of a disaster.
Otherwise there can be delays in getting information out. Each extra
step--uploading, emailing, downloading, publishing, or putting on a
site--can keep critical information from getting to people in a timely
manner.
To respond to some recent crises, Google had to gather emergency
information from Government websites in non-structured and difficult-
to-automate formats--such as text and PDF--and then translate them into
open standards. When we set up our Hurricane Sandy Crisis Map, we had
to spend time copying and pasting information about public hazards from
a PDF. After we did so, the data quickly became obsolete, and we had to
ask for an updated version. Generally, email attachments can take a few
days to process and upload and need to be reloaded and integrated for
each update, while open data feeds like KML only take minutes to
integrate and can be updated automatically in near-real time. We are
also often hindered by unclear licensing of data. While some datasets
are clearly in the public domain, many essential ones are not clearly
attributed or licensed, making them difficult to use.
Data providers that have their information clearly licensed, in
standard data formats, and that provide live feeds--including the
Common Alerting Protocol (an international standard for publishing and
sharing alerts that is used by NOAA, FEMA's iPAWS, and USGS) for Public
Alerts, or GeoRSS (an open standard for encoding location information)
and/or KML for Crisis Map--can update their information automatically.
As a result, open alert data is usually available in Google tools
within seconds of its being published.
We advocate using an open and common standard in order for everyone
to have a consistent way to automatically receive and share alerting
information, to publish alerts securely using open web formats like
Atom and RSS (XML-based languages used for web feeds), and to create
useful visualizations of content.
how governments can support technology efforts in crisis response
Information dissemination in an emergency depends on several
factors: Open and interoperable formats for emergency data, timely
release of such data, and location awareness. Without these, it is
extremely difficult to get the right emergency information to the right
people at the right time.
The ability of the internet to assist in crises depends on both
companies' and governments' improving how they share information. Using
divergent standards slows collaboration and response time, while speedy
and open access enables users to easily share information and
accelerates relief efforts.
To pursue some of the projects we've described, Google had to
gather emergency information from Government, NGO, and sometimes
corporate websites in arcane formats or bare HTML and then translate
them into open standards. Sometimes the information was spread across
numerous websites; other times, the licensing status of the data was
not readily apparent. Even today, some important data is not even on-
line at all, but in someone's spreadsheet on a personal computer.
Government can help by ensuring that important information
important is available in open, interoperable formats. For that reason,
we commend the White House for the recent Executive Order requiring
that data generated by the Federal Government be made available in
machine-readable formats by default, as well as steps Congress has
taken to increase access to Government data. State governments also
play an important role--the Florida Division of Emergency Management,
for example, has been a leader in publishing preparedness data. We hope
that agencies with emergency information in particular begin adopting
these standards as soon as possible, so more people can access that
information easily and speedily.
With better open and interoperable alerting systems, private actors
could interact with Government systems to display alerts or maps
tailored to geography, vulnerability, and situation. Information
providers like Google have the ability to contextualize alerts by
providing related news and other relevant information, as well as
linking these to sharing platforms and other social experiences that
are critical for empowering individuals and enabling better decision
making. They also can do so in an open manner so any other internet
company or emergency organization can use or build on it. Public
alerting systems must continue to evolve in ways that leverage the
capabilities of modern digital networks to distribute vital, machine-
readable information in crisis situations.
With more open data we could display more consistent and more
actionable alerts, covering things like power outages and road closures
when there are floods, for example. In some cases, a mobile alert--
targeted specifically to those who may be directly impacted--may help
increase their chances of getting to safety. Today, the Commercial
Mobile Alerting System (CMAS) can push mobile alerts that specifically
target users who are in the predicted path of a tornado or storm, and
Google can also provide location-specific information to supplement
these alerts. In the future, mobile devices may enable additional types
of alerts, such as ones with location-specific evacuation instructions
and shelter information. This type of information is particularly
valuable for densely-populated areas where there may be limited
resources spread out across the region.
We are committed to continue working with various stakeholders to
think of more ways to make the appropriate emergency information
available when and where people need it, including making emergency
alerts more useful and accessible to those who may be affected by
disasters.
conclusion
I would like to conclude by thanking Chairman Brooks, Ranking
Member Payne, the Members of the House Subcommittee on Emergency
Preparedness, Response, and Communications, and other Members of
Congress who have taken an interest in technology and crisis response.
Affordable, high-speed internet access, open data, and open standards
are minimum requirements for a Government to be considered ``tech-
ready'' ahead of a disaster. By ensuring that people are able to search
and find emergency information on-line ahead of time, governments can
reduce the amount of time it takes communicate with people when they
need help most.
We still have a long way to go, but we look forward to working
alongside emergency relief organizations and governments to help people
find the information they are looking for and improve the use of
internet-based technologies in disaster preparedness, relief, and
recovery.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Stepka.
The Chairwoman now recognizes Mr. Payne for 5 minutes for
an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JASON MATTHEW PAYNE, PHILANTHROPY LEAD, PALANTIR
TECHNOLOGIES
Mr. Payne. Chairwoman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and
Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
speak with you today.
My name is Jason Payne, and I lead the philanthropy
engineering team at Palantir technologies.
Palantir Technologies is a Silicon Valley software company.
We build data integration and analysis software for the
Governmental, private, and public sectors.
In the context of emergency preparedness, response, and
recovery our technology on laptops and smartphones leverages
one of the most scarce resources during disasters.
Information; to help our partners get the right physical
resources to the right places as soon as possible. Above here
is a screenshot of our technology displayed on a tent of an
emergency operation center in Oklahoma City.
[The information follows:]
Mr. Payne. This fusion that you are seeing here of public
data, of Governmental data, of social data, and mobile data
allows users to build a common operating picture to improve the
efficacy of response efforts.
One of our partners in Oklahoma City, Direct Relief, is a
nonprofit that donates over $300 million of medicine every
year. They use Palantir to integrate information from their own
databases with social data, public data from FEMA, DHS, CDC,
NOA, and even Google flu trends to conduct meteorological,
social vulnerability, supply chain, and health risk analyses of
communities throughout this Nation.
In the context of extreme weather relief, this knowledge
enables direct relief to pre-position supplies and medicine at
Federally-qualified health centers before storms hit, analyze
real-time weather data during the storm, and donate additional
medical supplies where they are needed most in wake of the
storm.
Another Palantir partner, Team Rubicon, is a group of
veterans engaged in disaster relief. They use Palantir to
tactically understand operational environment during disaster
response. After Hurricane Sandy, Team Rubicon used Palantir
mobile to survey and clean up over 1,000 structures in the
Rockaways.
Fusing surveys collected with Palantir mobile along with
public 3-1-1 data and even hand-written requests for help
collected in a church parking lot, several hundred Team Rubicon
members were able to efficiently harness over 14,000
spontaneous community volunteers, which is a tremendous
resource that has often been underutilized in disaster
scenarios.
Those volunteers, often joining through social media posts,
removed sand, saltwater, and sheet rock from homes damaged by
Sandy before mold set in thus keeping people in their homes.
That large-scale success was possible because of social media,
the veteran leadership of Team Rubicon, and acknowledged
management that Palantir facilitated.
As a result of our successes during Hurricane Sandy,
Palantir has made a commitment to action with the Clinton
Global Initiative to steer our cutting-edge technology
capabilities to more disaster-focused organizations.
Part of this commitment is our deployment that you see here
in Oklahoma City with direct relief in Team Rubicon to help
people get back on their feet after the devastating tornadoes.
Most importantly, it is using all of this data to build a
common operating picture that allows organizations to better
communicate to more efficiently and more effectively help those
on the ground that need it most.
Through trial and error we have learned a few important
lessons we would like to share with the committee. First, open
data is more important than formal exchange models.
In the context of emergent response, we believe that
holding out for perfect gets in the way of good enough. We
encourage Governmental organizations to adopt a Silicon Valley
approach to interoperability to put data out in a publicly
available, robust, standardized, secure, well-documented
interface and let other organizations come up with innovative
ways to leverage that data. We applaud NOAA and the Census
Bureau among others for taking this approach.
Second, internet and cloud technologies such as social
media are useless without power and connectivity. We encourage
the subcommittee to explore innovative solutions to provide
deployable 3G and 4G mobile networks as well as mobile device
charging stations to the public during large-scale emergencies.
Last, we would like to highlight the need for more robust
conversation about data access, sharing, and retention to
ensure that the privacy and civil liberties of those affected
by emergencies and disasters are respected at all times.
We believe that sensitive information such as names, dates
of birth, addresses, phone numbers, and certainly medical
information should be shared with only those with a need to
know that information even within an organization.
When a large-scale emergency strikes without a doubt there
are thousands and thousands of folks that seek to help those
most vulnerable. There are also a few bad actors out there that
seek to profit from those that are vulnerable.
The technology can make a radical difference to help those
with good intention, but can also empower those with ill. So we
highly recommend that we look closely at how data is shared,
leveraged, and utilized to ensure that it is used for proper
purposes.
New technology enables a new era, a whole new era of
disaster response. We are humbled to be a part of that
transformation and look forward to more work in the future to
help those affected by disaster get back on their feet.
This completes my prepared statement. Thank you again for
the opportunity to join you here today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Payne follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jason Matthew Payne
June 4, 2013
Good morning. Chairwoman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and Members
of the subcommittee: My name is Jason Payne, and I lead Palantir
Technologies' Philanthropy Engineering Team. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak with you today.
Palantir Technologies is a Silicon Valley software company based in
Palo Alto, California. We build data integration and analysis software
for the Governmental, private, and public sectors. A key part of our
work with NGOs focuses on emergency preparedness, response, and
recovery. With our partners Team Rubicon and Direct Relief
International, we recently made a Commitment to Action with the Clinton
Global Initiative to bring cutting-edge technological capabilities to
Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster, or VOADs.
The fundamental challenge of emergency preparedness, response, and
recovery is getting the right resources to the right places, as quickly
as possible. We believe that new technology, such as Palantir,
significantly improves the ability of organizations to meet that
challenge.
Palantir can be rapidly deployed to laptops and smart phones and
allows dispatchers and analysts working under critical time pressure to
fuse together and analyze large amounts of data from different sources.
Originally developed for use by the intelligence and defense community,
the platform includes robust, built-in measures to allow users
appropriate access and to share information across organizations while
protecting privacy and civil liberties.
For example, Direct Relief, a non-profit that donates over $300
million of medicine every year, uses Palantir to integrate information
from their own databases, partnering organizations, and public data
from FEMA, DHS, CDC, and NOAA to conduct meteorological, social
vulnerability, supply chain, and health-risk analyses of areas
vulnerable to large storms.
This resulting knowledge enables Direct Relief to pre-position
supplies and medicine at Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)
before storms hit, analyze real-time weather data during the storm, and
provide emergency medical supplies where they are needed most in the
wake of the storm. After Hurricane Sandy, volunteers and staff on the
ground used Palantir Mobile to collect and send data to Direct Relief
headquarters in real time. Palantir was also used to monitor infectious
disease trends and route donated medical resources to the areas in
greatest need.
While Direct Relief uses Palantir to make big-picture strategic
decisions about resource allocation, Team Rubicon, a group of veterans
engaged in disaster relief, uses Palantir to tactically understand the
operational environment during a disaster response. During the response
to Hurricane Sandy, Team Rubicon used Palantir's mobile phone
application to quickly survey over 1,500 structures in the Rockaways.
Fusing those surveys with public 3-1-1 data, and even paper requests
for help collected in a church parking lot, several hundred Team
Rubicon members were able to efficiently harness over 14,000
spontaneous community volunteers--a tremendous resource that has often
been underutilized in disaster scenarios.
During the Sandy aftermath, those volunteers removed sand,
saltwater, and sheetrock from damaged homes before mold set in, keeping
people in their homes. That success was possible because of social
media, Team Rubicon's leadership, and the data integration, knowledge
management, and efficient planning that Palantir facilitated.
As part of our Clinton Global Initiative commitment, Direct Relief,
Team Rubicon, and Palantir are collaborating on recovery efforts in
Oklahoma City after the devastating tornadoes on May 20 and 31.
Leveraging on-the-ground surveys collected with Palantir Mobile, along
with Google, NWS, HRSA, and local parcel data, these organizations are
working together to help with both health and infrastructure response
and recovery. Most importantly, the common operating picture that they
are building with Palantir is being shared with other VOAD and
Governmental organizations active in the area.
Through trial and error, as well as success and failure, we've
learned a few important lessons that we would like to share with the
committee.
First, open data portals are more important than formal information
exchange models. In the context of emergency response data sharing, we
believe that holding out for perfect gets in the way of good enough. We
encourage Governmental organizations to adopt a Silicon Valley approach
to data interoperability--put the data out publicly in a robust,
standardized, well-documented interface and let other organizations
come up with innovative ways to leverage the data. This is why Palantir
makes a strong commitment to openness and provides programmatic query
languages and web services to make all data in Palantir open. We
applaud NOAA, NWS, and the Census Bureau, among others, for taking this
approach.
Second, internet and cloud technology, such as social media, are
extremely valuable as long as people have power and connectivity.
Without both, it's useless. We encourage the subcommittee to explore
innovative solutions to provide deployable
3/4G mobile networks, as well as mobile device charging stations, to
the public during large-scale emergencies. We applaud the idea of the
FirstNet initiative from the Department of Commerce, and suggest that
the network be opened up to key non-profit organizations as well as
Governmental agencies.
Last, we would like to highlight the need for a more robust
conversation about data access, sharing, and retention to ensure that
the privacy and civil liberties of those affected by emergencies and
disasters are respected at all times. When a disaster occurs, thousands
of volunteers seek to help vulnerable people get back on their feet.
There are also a few unscrupulous bad actors that seek to exploit and
profit from those vulnerable people. Data can empower those altruistic
volunteer efforts, but without correct data access and sharing
technology, that same data can empower those bad actors.
We believe that public data such as locations of shelters and
medical facilities, power status reports, and satellite imagery should
be available to all organizations and citizens. We also believe that
sensitive information, such as names, dates of birth, addresses, phone
numbers, social media posts, financial information, and certainly
medical information should be shared with only those with need to know
that information, even within an organization.
Furthermore, we recommend that sensitive data collected during an
emergency should be deleted when reasonably possible after emergencies.
We encourage the development of clear data retention policies for all
volunteer and Governmental organizations that work in the preparation,
response, and recovery life cycle. These retention policies should be
clearly communicated with affected individuals, State and local
entities, commercial organizations, and VOADs to encourage all parties
to share pertinent information.
New technology enables a whole new era of disaster response. We are
humbled to be a part of that transformation and look forward to more
work in the future to help those affected by disaster get back on their
feet.
This completes my prepared statement. Thank you again for the
opportunity to join you all here today.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Payne.
The Chairwoman now recognizes Mr. Beckerman for 5 minutes
for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BECKERMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, THE INTERNET
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Beckerman. Thank you.
Chairwoman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and distinguished
Members of the committee, thank you for calling this timely
hearing. It is a pleasure to appear before you today to discuss
how the internet and social media are transforming how
Americans prepare, respond, and recover when disaster strikes.
My name is Michael Beckerman. I am president and CEO of the
Internet Association, a trade organization comprised of the
world's leading internet companies.
Our members have been on the forefront of efforts to
leverage new technology and communications platforms to inform
the public before, during, and after a disaster.
Today I will just highlight a few examples from my written
testimony that I submitted for the record.
As you can see on the screen, the rise of social media,
crowdsourcing, and the sharing economy have revolutionized how
we interact with our friends, family, fellow citizens, and
Government.
Communicating during a disaster is now an interactive
conversation. Millions of minds converge to solve problems,
seek out answers, and disseminate vital information. The
convergence of social networks and mobile has thrown the old
response playbook out the window.
The earthquake that rocked Haiti in January 2010 served as
an example of the opportunity social media and mobile
technology provide to support the great work of our disaster
response professionals.
A few hours after the earthquake, a man who was trapped
with 20 other people under a collapsed building in Port-au-
Prince managed to send a photograph of the wreckage from his
phone to a cousin in Chicago. The cousin then tweeted the
photograph to @RedCross and first responders in Haiti were able
to rescue them. In previous disasters, these victims may not
have been rescued in time.
Applying the lessons learned from Haiti, a protocol has
begun to emerge. Facebook's disaster relief page, which was
created during the Haiti earthquake is now used any time a
disaster strikes.
The American Red Cross' Facebook page has over a quarter-
million people following them to learn about disasters, how
they can donate both blood and money, and get information in
real time.
Beyond the dissemination of disaster information and
donations, the Red Cross has also established a social media
command center. This allows them to better serve those who need
help, spot trends in real time, and anticipate the public's
needs. It not only connects people with food, water, shelter,
but it also helps provide emotional support when they need it
most.
When a tornado devastated Tuscaloosa in 2011, a local
school system went on-line and posted a request for volunteers
to help clean up their school. Amazingly, 80 people showed up
in less than 30 minutes.
This response typifies the unmatched power of social media.
You would be hard-pressed to make these phone calls in 30
minutes, let alone have an outpouring of 80 people show up that
quickly.
Just last fall when Hurricane Sandy ravaged the coastline
of my home State of New Jersey, people took to the internet to
document their experience. In fact, FEMA encouraged people to
``Let loved ones that know you are okay by sending a text
message or updating your social network.''
In a truly miraculous story coming out of Hurricane Sandy,
a woman noticed a Facebook post showing the badly-hit South
Seaside Park, and she knew her 93-year-old grandmother was
there trapped, and she sent a message to this page, and as a
result, her grandmother was evacuated and saved.
One of the Internet Association member companies, Airbnb,
sprang into action following the hurricane as well. As you may
know, Airbnb as an on-line marketplace that helps find housing
accommodations.
With more than 100,000 people still homeless a week after
Sandy, Airbnb partnered with the city of New York to connect to
those without shelter to people that had extra space. As you
can see on the screen, nearly 1,500 Airbnb members opened their
homes for free to provide shelter to people in need.
Finally, just last month, in Oklahoma, social media
supplemented the traditional means of spreading the message to
take shelter. In the immediate aftermath of the tornado, FEMA
again encouraged survivors to update their social networks to
let loved ones know their whereabouts so families could be
reconnected.
Social media has also changed the way American citizens
respond to try to be. The city of Moore, Oklahoma, for example,
as you see on the screen, used its Facebook page to inform
citizens on ways they could help.
Social media platforms like Flickr and Instagram allow
people from all over the country and all over the world see
both wreckage and hope in real time. Seeing these unfiltered
images in real time help tells the story in ways that
traditional media never could and allows people to feel
connected, giving them an even greater desire to help.
The internet has served as a remarkable tool to save lives,
facilitate philanthropic relief efforts, and improve disaster
responsiveness, but there is always work to be done.
Responding to this challenge will require a collaborative
effort among the Government agencies, first responders,
technology companies, and the general public.
It is our pledge that the Internet Association will do our
part working with our companies to facilitate these
conversations between Government and technology companies to
help harness the power of social media and strengthen our
Nation's emergency preparedness for the 21st Century.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beckerman follows:]
Prepared Statement of Michael Beckerman
June 4, 2013
introduction
Chairwoman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and distinguished Members
of the committee, thank you for calling this timely and important
hearing. It is a pleasure and an honor to appear before you today to
discuss how the internet and social media and are transforming how
Americans prepare, respond, and recover when disaster strikes.
My name is Michael Beckerman, and I am the president and CEO of the
Internet Association, a trade organization comprised of 17 leading
internet companies across the globe, including AOL, Airbnb, Amazon.com,
ebay, Expedia, Facebook, Google, IAC, LinkedIn, Monster, Path,
Rackspace, Salesforce.com, SurveyMonkey, TripAdvisor, Yahoo, and Zynga.
Our members have been on the forefront of efforts to leverage new
technology and communication platforms to inform the public before,
during, and after a disaster, and to facilitate recovery and
reconstruction efforts in the aftermath. We deeply appreciate the
opportunity to share the perspective of our membership with the
committee today.
The rise of social media, ``crowd-sourcing'' and the ``share
economy'' has revolutionized how we interact with our friends, family,
fellow citizens, and Government. Communicating during a disaster is now
an interactive conversation. Millions of minds converge to solve
problems, seek out answers and disseminate vital information. Important
news can be shared with millions, and by millions, quickly and
efficiently. The social web is challenging emergency managers,
Government agencies, and aid organizations to adapt time-honored
expertise with real-time information from the public (Please see
Exhibit A). In short, the convergence of social networks and mobile has
thrown the old response playbook out the window.
then and now: evolution of technology in disaster response
The power and promise of the internet was on full display in the
immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the most devastating
natural disasters this country has ever experienced. When this
catastrophic storm ravaged the city of New Orleans and its surrounding
areas, it claimed many lives, displaced hundreds of thousands of
people, and left billions of dollars worth of damage with its wreckage.
During an emergency, information is the most valuable commodity.
After the storm, the internet played an important role in mitigating
the breakdown of communication that is typical during times of
disaster. According to the Pew Research Center, about 50% of all
internet users received news about the hurricane not only from
mainstream media websites but also from blogs.\1\ A quarter of on-line
users shared e-mails or instant messages about the storm while others
used the internet to check on someone's safety.\2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Stephen Morris and John Horrigan, ``13 million Americans made
donations online after Hurricane Katrina and Rita,'' http://
www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/13-million-Americans-made-donations-
online-after-Hurricanes-Katrina-and-Rita/Data-Memo.aspx (Nov. 24,
2005).
\2\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The water's recession revealed the true extent of the devastation,
which inspired the rest of the country and the world to make monetary
contributions critical to rebuilding the city. In just a few short
weeks after the storm, private donations neared about $2.7 billion.\3\
In reaching this record-setting level, the internet served as an
important outlet for relief donations with about 13 million Americans
turning to on-line sources to provide donations.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Thomas Frank, ``Katrina inspires record charity,'' USA TODAY
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-11-13-katrina-
charity_x.htm?csp=34 (Nov. 13, 2005).
\4\ Stephen Morris and John Horrigan, ``13 million Americans made
donations online after Hurricane Katrina and Rita,'' http://
www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2005/13-million-Americans-made-donations-
online-after-Hurricanes-Katrina-and-Rita/Data-Memo.aspx (Nov. 24,
2005).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
That was 2005--only a year after Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook,
before Twitter came into existence and even before smartphones became
as ubiquitous as they are today. Since then, our member companies have
continued to innovate, achieving significant advancements in on-line
tools and services such as social media. Today, crowd-sourcing and
social media allow information to be shared in real time, allowing
first responders to reach victims much faster than before.
In the years since Hurricane Katrina, many wonder how the robust
and well-developed social media websites we enjoy today could have been
leveraged. Could we have saved more lives had there been a full-fledged
Facebook or Twitter?
The 7.0 magnitude earthquake that rocked Haiti in January of 2010
served as an example of the opportunities social media and mobile
technology present to support the great work of our disaster response
professionals.
Within a few hours of the quake, a man trapped with 20 other people
under a collapsed building in Port-au-Prince managed to send a photo of
the wreckage from his phone to a cousin in Chicago. The cousin tweeted
the photo to ``@RedCross'' and the Red Cross in turn relayed the
location to first responders in Haiti. In previous disasters, these
victims may not have been rescued in time. In other instances, using
geo-location technology built into phones, allowed rescue workers to
pinpoint the location of trapped victims and save many lives.
To cite one prominent example of innovation in disaster response
from our membership, immediately after the 2010 Haiti earthquake,
Google worked with the United States Department of State to create
Google Person Finder, an on-line registry and message board for
survivors, family, and loved ones affected by a natural disaster
allowing them to post and search for information about each other's
status and whereabouts. Google Person Finder launched in English,
French, and Haitian Creole on January 15, less than 3 days after the
earthquake.
Social media a vital role in the critical days and weeks after a
disaster, when efforts transition from response to recovery. In a
connected, borderless medium, the excuse that donating relief money is
too complicated and confusing has largely been eradicated through text
messaging and social media. In the first 48 hours following the Haitian
Earthquake, the Red Cross raised more than $3 million dollars from
people texting a $10 donation. ``Crowd funding'' empowers citizens to
donate to, and solicit donations for, victims of disasters through
posts to Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media
sites.
To highlight just a few examples from The Internet Association
membership:
Facebook launched the Disaster Relief on Facebook Page,
where millions of people could educate themselves and find out
how to help.
Zynga, the on-line gaming company, was able to raise nearly
$3 million for relief efforts from their game players.
Amazon.com customers gave more than $750,000 through the
Amazon.com website.
Through a corporate campaign, Expedia, Inc. donated $200,000 to the
United Nations and held a special 2:1 match, with employees
donating an additional $75,000 (total donation of $270,000 to
the United Nations).
Applying the lessons learned from the Haiti disaster, a protocol
has begun to emerge. Facebook's Disaster Relief Page is now used for
wherever disaster and misfortune may strike. The American Red Cross's
Facebook page alone now has more than half a million fans to which the
organization delivers disaster news and allows people to donate both
blood and money.
Beyond the dissemination of disaster information and donations, the
Red Cross has established a Social Media Command Center--the first
social media-based operation devoted to humanitarian relief. Located in
the Red Cross National Disaster Operations Center in Washington, DC,
the center is expanding the Red Cross's ability to engage with the
public during emergencies and enabling Red Cross team members to
determine where to position workers on the ground. The command center
allows the Red Cross to better serve those who need help, spot trends,
and better anticipate the public's needs; and connect people with the
resources they need, like food, water, shelter, or even emotional
support.
Additionally, the Red Cross has established a Social Media
Volunteer Corps program to help respond to questions from and provide
information to the public during disasters. The Red Cross has conducted
numerous webinars to train this new digital volunteer army, who have
played critical roles in working to verify and curate the incredible
volume of data during disasters, notifying Digital Operations Center
staff of on-line trends and situational information that can inform
disaster-response efforts. Google's work on the Haiti earthquake led to
the formation of the Google Crisis Response team, which has launched
Google Person Finder again for several subsequent disasters, in many
different languages and with a variety of data exchange partners.
Before I conclude, I'd like to quickly touch on a few more recent
disasters and highlights some social media success stories from among
our membership.
Japan Tsunami, March 2011.--Images of entire cities being crushed
under water half a world away left many Americans feeling helpless.
Luckily we have companies like Amazon.com, which offered homepage
placement to the American Red Cross and Mercy Corps in addition to
donating their payment technology. This led to more than $1.8 million
in relief aid for our friends in Japan. Social media played an
important role as the most efficient and reliable way to connect with
relatives. Even the U.S. State Department took to Twitter to publish
emergency number and inform Japanese residents in America of how to
contact their families affected in Japan.\5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Harry Wallop, ``Japan earthquake: how Twitter and Facebook
helped,'' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/8379101/Japan-
earthquake-how-Twitter-and-Facebook-helped.html (Mar. 13, 2011).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuscaloosa, AL and Joplin, MO Tornados, April & May 2011.--When a
tornado devastated Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a local school system went on-
line to post a request for volunteers to help clean up their school--
amazingly, 80 people showed up in less than 30 minutes. This typifies
the unmatched power of social media; you would be hard-pressed to make
40 phone calls in 30 minutes, never mind 80. As users leverage our
member companies' services, our member companies also lend their
manpower and expertise in the recovery process. Expedia, Inc. employees
continue to volunteer to provide their on-going support in the clean-up
and recovery effort.
Hurricane Sandy, October 2012.--When last fall's once-in-a-century
type storm slammed our eastern seaboard, people took to the internet to
document their experience. The volume was so large that the Red Cross
asked 23 staffers to monitor over 2.5 million social media posts; of
which, 4,500 were tagged for first responders to follow up on.
New York City itself turned to Twitter to seek out emergency-
related tweets in the aftermath of the storm. For instance, the city's
Chief Digital Officer organized responses to hundreds of Twitter
questions pouring in for those in need of accurate information.\6\ In
addition to disseminating information, the Fire Department of New
York's Social Media Manager used Twitter to serve as a liaison between
those residents in distress and firefighters and EMS members. As phone
lines remained down, the Social Media Manager responded to tweets
requesting assistance by collecting phone numbers and the details of
the emergency then relayed that information to first responders.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Chris Moody, Meet FDNY's one-woman Twitter response team
guiding New Yorkers through storm, http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/
meet-fdny-one-woman-twitter-response-team-guiding-141143449.html (Oct.
30, 2012).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Airbnb, an on-line marketplace for users to find housing
accommodations, sprang into action following Hurricane Sandy. With more
than 100,000 people still homeless a week after Hurricane Sandy hit the
Northeast, Airbnb partnered with the city of New York to connect those
without shelter to people who had extra space. Nearly 1,500 Airbnb
members opened up their homes for free to people in need. Please See
Exhibit B.
Justin Ausiello's Jersey Shore Hurricane News Facebook page became
a trusted place for information and served as a crucial tool for those
affected by the hurricane, by informing citizens about shelters,
supplies, and news.\7\ In a truly miraculous story, a woman noticed a
post on Mr. Ausiello's page of the badly-hit South Seaside Park, where
her 93-year-old, diabetic grandmother was trapped. After the woman sent
a message to the News Page, her grandmother was subsequently rescued.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Jersey Shore Hurricane News, https://www.facebook.com/
JerseyShoreHurricane- News?sid=0.9051242845943719--last visited June 3,
2013.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ebay Inc., an on-line market place for consumers, coordinated a
company-wide effort to support the massive community relief and
recovery effort and looked to more than 210,000 users for assistance.
As a result, StubHub, ebay, and PayPal facilitated over $10 million of
support for Hurricane Sandy relief.
Moore, Oklahoma Tornado, May 2013.--Thanks to advanced technology
and excellent meteorologists, Oklahomans knew of the tornado risks days
in advance. Social media supplemented traditional means of spreading
the message to take shelter. In the immediate aftermath, FEMA
encouraged survivors to update their social networks to let their loved
ones know their whereabouts, if they were safe or needed emergency
assistance. Along with the Red Cross, cities, animal assistance groups,
and prayer/religious support groups now have a strong presence on
social media.
Social media has changed the way American citizens respond to
tragedy. The city of Moore uses its Facebook page to inform citizens on
ways they can help. (Please see Exhibit C). Social media platforms like
Flickr and Instagram allowed people from all over the country to see
the both the wreckage and the hope in Moore, Oklahoma on their computer
screens, tablets, and smartphones. Seeing unfiltered images in real
time tells the story in ways the traditional news media is unable to,
and allows people to feel connected giving them an even greater desire
to help.
Continuing similar efforts as it did with Hurricane Sandy, ebay is
promoting and facilitating customer donations. In addition to providing
an opportunity on its home page for customers to make contributions,
sellers, and buyers have other options available to them. For instance,
sellers may donate a percentage of their sale proceeds to a featured
relief organization or buyers may purchase items via the website that
benefit relief organizations, marked with a special charity icon.
Additionally, PayPal powers payment processing for partner
organizations and personal fundraisers.
conclusion
The internet has served as a remarkable tool to save lives,
facilitate unprecedented philanthropic relief efforts, and improve
disaster responsiveness.
And yet, there are still challenges that remain. Emergency response
professionals are not yet fully ready to collect, respond, or react to
the incoming stream of social data in a timely manner. Responding to
this challenge will require a collaborative effort among Government
agencies, first responders, technology companies, public safety
officials, and the general public.
It is my pledge to you that The Internet Association will do its
part to facilitate these conversations and collaborations so that we
can harness the power of social media and strengthen our Nation's
emergency preparedness, response, and recovery for the 21st Century.
Exhibit A \8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ First Image: Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin's Twitter Post
Updates. Also available at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/21/
oklahoma-tornados-2013-killed_n_3310410.- html (last visited May 31,
2013). Second Image: Instagram Photo of Oklahoma Tornado Aftermath by
lynn_love.
Exhibit B--The City of Moore Facebook Page \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ The City of Moore, https://www.facebook.com/cityofmoore (last
visited June 3, 2013).
Exhibit C--AirBnb Page for Hurricane Sandy
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Beckerman.
The Chairwoman now recognizes Mr. Cardenas for 5 minutes
for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF JORGE L. CARDENAS, VICE PRESIDENT, ASSET
MANAGEMENT AND CENTRALIZED SERVICES, PUBLIC SERVICE ELECTRIC
AND GAS COMPANY
Mr. Cardenas. Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and
Members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today.
My name is Jorge Cardenas. I am vice president of asset
management and centralized services for Public Service Electric
and Gas Company, which is New Jersey's largest utility, best
known as PSE&G.
PSE&G's service territory includes all of New Jersey's
major urban areas. We serve some 2.2 million electric customers
and 1.8 million gas customers. These really has come together
to be about 70 percent of the population of New Jersey.
Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey hard. In our service
territory, it took down 48,000 trees which impacted our
distribution system. It destroyed 2,400 utility poles--many of
them were snapped like toothpicks--drove walls of water into 29
of our switching and substations, and damaged our gas lines and
meters.
Over 40,000 of our gas customers were impacted and almost 2
million of our electric customers lost power. Restoration
efforts were impeded by a forceful nor'easter that hit a week
later. The impact of destruction and the complexity of the work
to restore service made communications of all kinds a key
component of the Sandy recovery effort.
Before I discuss our social media experience, let me also
note the importance of smart grid technology, which enables
utilities to obtain critical information that can help pinpoint
problems and automate restoration.
Smart grid technology enhances our ability to communicate
with our own system. It can dramatically shorten the time it
takes to restore service in the aftermath of a storm and can
prevent outages from becoming widespread.
That is why in New Jersey we have proposed $450 million
investment in smart grid technology as part of our energy
strong proposal, which will harden our system against these
types of extraordinary weather events, those we have
experienced over the recent past.
Turning to social media, we used email and Twitter the days
before the storm to communicate about safety and to help people
prepare, and after the storm passed we use them to explain the
historic amounts of damage and the huge effort it would take to
rebuild.
We used Twitter to advise on the daily location of our
giant tents and generators which allowed customers to charge
electronic equipment, get free ice, water, and food. We
explained the importance of reporting outages and damaged
equipment and the correct method to do so, so we can take
action.
We educated the public about what we were doing to get
power to refineries, hospitals, schools, businesses, and homes.
While we had historically used social media only during
business hours and with a small group of employees, we quickly
staffed up for 17 days, operated our Twitter feeds 15 hours a
day, 7 days a week.
We sent more than 9,000 messages and saw some 90,000
directed at us. At one point during the storm we sent so many
tweets that we exceeded our daily allowances. Through our
utility contacts we reached the leadership of Twitter to expand
our capacity. That is a lesson learned for the next storm.
Ultimately, we added over 47,000 followers during the time
of the storm. When we exited the storm, we had the largest
following of any utility in the United States.
Our innovative use of social media has been noticed outside
the company. In a recent report, JD Power and Associates cited
our industry-leading communication success. Following Sandy,
the utility customer service non-profit CS Week gave PSE&G an
award for our use of social media during the storm.
Here are some of our key takeaways; lessons learned. Mobile
technology is a game changer. More than half of Americans have
a smart phone and more and more people in almost every age
demographic are active on social media. People have an
increasing and insatiable need to be connected even more so in
times of emergency.
They want to be heard. They want to be validated. They want
to help and influence us. The number of people on social media
spikes in times of disaster. People flock to Twitter and
Facebook and the like because they are searching for immediate
information that they can't get via traditional broadcast
channels.
Engaging influencers is critical. It is just as important
to grow the influence of your on-line community as it is to
grow its size. Connecting with people who have credibility in
their local communities is critical to an organization's
ability to spread its message.
The public respects and rewards consistent, transparent
interaction and cooperation between the private sector and
community leaders. During Sandy we used Twitter to amplify
messages from municipal and State officials, police
departments, Office of Emergency Management, and social service
agencies helping get valuable information right away to those
who needed it.
Tone matters. It does matter a lot. People respect a social
media effort that is continuously empathetic, authentic, and
helpful. Public notes of appreciation matter too, especially to
the fiercely proud people who work in the utility industry. We
regard ourselves as first responders and supportive messages
can go a long way with a weary employee base in need of a
boost.
In closing, Sandy hit home how important it is to continue
to improve our ability to communicate in an increasingly 24/7
connected and cyber-savvy world.
To that end, I want to thank Congressman Payne for working
with us on a National Research Council study that will help our
industry use digital information to improve reliability and
resiliency and help us understand our vulnerabilities to cyber-
attacks.
Thank you again for the opportunity to share our
experience.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cardenas follows:]
Prepared Statement of Jorge L. Cardenas
June 4, 2013
Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and Members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you here
today.
My name is Jorge Cardenas. I am vice president of asset management
and centralized services for Public Service Electric and Gas Company,
which is New Jersey's largest utility company, best known as PSE&G.
PSE&G's service territory includes all of New Jersey's major urban
areas, along a 2,600-square-mile north-south corridor that hugs much of
the New Jersey Turnpike. We serve some 2.2 million electric customers,
and 1.8 million gas customers.
PSE&G is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, an
integrated generation and energy company headquartered in Newark, New
Jersey.
I appreciate your invitation to appear at today's hearing to
discuss the use of social media and technology during disaster.
Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey hard. In our service territory, it
took down 48,000 trees affecting our distribution system, destroyed
2,400 utility poles, drove walls of water into 29 of our switching and
substations, and damaged gas lines and meters.
The damage, and the impact to our system, was unprecedented.
All in all, over 40,000 of our gas customers were impacted; many
needing their heating systems repaired and their gas meters and
regulators replaced, and 90 percent of our electric customers--almost 2
million--lost power. Restoration efforts were impeded by a forceful
nor'easter that hit a week later.
The impact of the destruction and the complexity of the work that
needed to be done in order to restore service made communication--of
all kinds--a key component of the Sandy recovery effort.
I'm here primarily to talk about our use of social media, but let
me also note the importance of smart grid technology which makes it
possible for utilities like ours to obtain critical information that
can help pinpoint problems and automate restoration. Smart grid
technology can dramatically shorten the time it takes to restore
service in the aftermath of a storm, and can prevent outages from
becoming widespread.
That's why, in New Jersey, we have proposed a $450 million
investment in smart grid technology as part of our $3.9 billion
``Energy Strong'' proposal, which will harden our system against the
types of extraordinary weather events that have hit our area over the
last few years.
Now I'd like to talk in more detail about our experience with
social media and its value as a communications tool for a storm event
like Sandy.
We already had email addresses for about 800,000 customers and
almost 15,000 people in our Twitter community, and the ability to
communicate directly was helpful.
We used email and Twitter in the days before Sandy to communicate
about safety and to help people prepare. After the storm passed, we
used them to explain the historic amount of damage and the Herculean
effort it would take to clean up and rebuild.
We explained the importance of reporting outages and damaged
equipment, and the correct method for doing so.
We supplemented the messages we typically send in a storm through
traditional media outlets with a greater number of proactive outbound
phone calls to customers, daily conference calls with local leaders,
more frequent emails to stakeholders, and a much stronger social media
presence than we had ever before attempted.
We educated customers and community leaders about our inspection
and restoration process for getting power to refineries, as well as
heat and light to hospitals, schools, businesses, and homes.
Throughout it all, we were frank about the challenges and setbacks
we faced--as well as our victories.
That consistent and transparent dialogue helped our customers and
the communities we serve set expectations and plan appropriately.
We not only listened and pushed out valuable information--we talked
with people. That was a differentiator.
For our part, we're proud of the speed and flexibility with which
we ramped up, our ability to adapt to the magnitude of the situation,
the volume of interactions we handled via social media and the intense
and sustained nature of our efforts.
While we had historically used social media only during business
hours and with a small group of people at the helm, we quickly staffed
up and, for 17 days, staffed our Twitter feeds 15 hours a day, 7 days a
week.
We used Twitter to send word about the daily locations of our giant
tents and generators--which allowed customers in hard-hit areas to
charge their electronic equipment and get free ice, water, and food.
We sent more than 9,000 messages (more than 500 a day) and saw some
90,000 directed at us. When the volume of in-bound tweets became too
great to us to reply to each individually, we responded to messages
about safety and offered comment when we felt it could benefit a broad
audience.
At one point during the storm, we sent so many tweets to alert
customers, we exceeded the amount of tweets allowed per day. Through
our utility contacts, we reached the leadership of Twitter to expand
our capacity. A lesson learned for the next storm.
We gained almost 47,000 followers during this time, and exited the
Superstorm with the largest Twitter community of any utility in the
United States.
Our innovative use of social media was certainly noticed. In a
recent report, JD Power and Associates mentioned our use of Twitter
during Sandy as a best practice, citing our ``industry-leading
communications success.''
And CS Week, a nonprofit that focuses on customer service for
utilities, recently gave PSE&G an award for ``Innovation in Customer
Service'' for its use of social media during Sandy.
While we are back to a more reasonable pace now, we are now more
convinced than ever about the power and importance of social media--
especially in times of emergency.
We continue to build and engage our on-line communities with the
understanding that ``blue sky days'' are different than those marked by
crises, and social media and mobile technology are an increasingly
important part our communications strategy.
Here are some other things we learned:
1. Mobile technology is a game changer.--More than half of
Americans have a smart phone, and more and more people--in
almost every age demographic--are active on social media.
2. People have an increasing and insatiable need to be connected.--
Even more so in times of emergency. They want to be heard, to
be validated, to help and to influence. Understanding that, and
honoring it, is key to creating community and getting through
crises.
3. The number of people on social media spikes in times of
disaster.--People flock to Twitter and Facebook and the like
because they are searching for immediate information that they
can't get via traditional broadcast channels. And the big
social media platforms are all mobile-optimized.
4. Engaging influencers is critical.--It's just as important to
grow the influence of your on-line community as it is to grow
the size. Connecting with people who have credibility and
influence in their local communities is critical to an
organization's ability to spread its message outside of its own
networks, and increase the effectiveness of the communication.
5. The public respects and rewards consistent, transparent
interaction and cooperation between the private sector and
community leaders.--During Sandy we used Twitter to amplify
messages from municipal and State officials, police
departments, Offices of Emergency Management and social service
agencies--and that was integral in getting valuable information
to those who needed it when it was needed.
6. Tone matters.--People respect a social media effort that is
continuously empathetic, authentic, and helpful.
7. Public notes of appreciation matter too, especially to the
fiercely proud people who work in the utility industry.--We
regard ourselves as first responders, and supportive messages
can go a long way with a weary employee base in need of a
morale boost.
So--how do we build on this experience at PSE&G?
Today our customers can access outage maps on our website and get
information about safety and our outage reporting and restoration
processes.
We are optimizing these pages and other parts of our website so
that they can be more easily utilized via smart phones.
While we have some exciting new texting capabilities, we are
looking to enrich our offerings even further so that customers can
report their outages via text and get updates from us as we make
progress on restoring their service.
And we are working on developing separate web pages for each of the
municipalities we serve, which will provide localized information
including an estimated time of restoration for specific geographic
areas.
Sandy reminded us how important it is to continue to improve our
ability to communicate in an increasingly 24/7, connected, and cyber-
savvy world. We continue to work with our peers both within the energy
industry and in other industries to learn and develop best practices.
While I work for the utility company, it is worth noting for this
committee that the generation side of our business has begun
incorporating social media into its emergency planning.
Working with the Nuclear Energy Institute, PSEG Nuclear has begun
to transform its existing news center operations into a virtual joint
information system (JIS).
The virtual JIS would incorporate social media platforms and a dark
website to share information with the public in the event of a nuclear
plant emergency.
The plan incorporates NEI's lessons learned through the tragedy in
Japan as well as PSEG's learnings from Superstorm Sandy.
This process is being developed with support from the New Jersey
Office of Emergency Management as well as the Delaware Emergency
Management Agency. It would also meet requirements established by the
Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Finally, I want to thank Congressman Payne for his bill which calls
for a National Research Council study that could help our industry use
digital information to improve reliability and resiliency, and help us
understand our vulnerabilities as they relate to cyber attack.
In closing, changing weather patterns and an increased dependence
on electricity require us to rethink the use of communications
technology throughout our operations. Social media certainly has an
increased role to play in the dissemination of emergency and disaster
information.
And when we think about how to make our grid more resilient, it is
smart grid technology that allows our equipment to ``talk''--giving
critical pieces the ability to automatically locate, isolate, diagnose,
and begin to address problems--which helps us keep the lights on.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify this morning, and
I'd be happy to take any questions.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Cardenas.
Before I begin to ask questions and before the rest of the
panel begins to ask questions, I would like to mention that in
the spirit of this hearing, last week I, as well as some
members of my team and staff from homeland security,
participated in last Friday's weekly ``SMEM chat'' or what is
Social Media Emergency Management chat on Twitter and solicited
questions from those participants.
So on a weekly basis folks participate in this manner, and
I appreciate all of the wonderful insights. I am not sure if
this has been done in Congress before to solicit these types of
questions, but since this is the people's house, I am happy to
be submitting some of these questions that came from this chat
last Friday.
I should also note that during that chat, I was asked to
express their appreciation for the work that your companies and
your association are doing to support emergency managers. They
truly appreciate it, and they wanted to make sure that we, you
know, thanked the private sector for all of the work they are
doing to support their work.
I would like to start out first of all with Mr. Stepka.
Thank you for speaking with us today, and certainly I know
and you have shared with us all of the positive things that
Google is doing to assist survivors and responders during
Hurricane Sandy in particular, but I am very curious what kind
of feedback you have received particularly from the users of
your products; whether it is crisis maps, people finder, public
alerts, and what kind of changes have you made, because this is
obviously an evolving process, and I am curious, you know, what
you have heard from the users.
Mr. Stepka. Sure. One thing we look at for feedback is just
how much things are being used and definitely our products are
being used a lot. We had over 15 million unique visits to the
Sandy pages alone. We had millions of people over the years
using our products in this context.
I think one of the key areas we looked at--I mentioned
about crowdsourcing and how that became important, I think, to
add to the crisis maps. We realized that that information is
necessary. Sometimes the authoritative sources are not going to
have everything you need to know. That is one piece of
feedback.
Mrs. Brooks. Can you just explain to us and for the
audience what crowdsourcing is?
Mr. Stepka. Sure. The notion of crowdsourcing is that
basically rather than just taking data from authoritative
sources like from, you know, FEMA or other organizations that
have information from their sources which are authoritative, we
also have the idea of crowdsourcing is collecting data from our
users directly and finding a way to put that onto our
properties around our products; so like on a map.
The example I gave was around fuel stations in New Jersey.
That information came from users and then was then put on our
website and on our maps so people could see where the stations
were that had fuel.
The advantage of crowdsourcing is it lets lots of people on
the ground participate and provide that information and you
have to have a way to do that in a way that makes--that there
is good feedback and people can correct data if they find
errors. This is a crowd effort to make sure the data is
accurate.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. Just a follow-up with respect to
your maps. I know you receive information data feeds from
multiple sources like you have said, FEMA, Red Cross, and
others. Have you experienced, and you mentioned it in your
testimony, have you experienced interoperability issues with
importing that information onto your maps?
How does that work? What are you doing to address those
issues? Or what should groups like FEMA and Red Cross who we
hope to be talking to in a next panel discussion, you know,
what should we be sharing with them?
Mr. Stepka. Yes. Over the years we spent a lot of time
early on doing a lot of massaging of data frankly to get it on
to the maps. It was a lot of work initially; it was very ad hoc
because we just wanted to get the information to people as
quickly as possible.
It did slow things down quite a bit. We are working a lot
to get data in machine-readable formats and that is the most
important thing--ways that we can actually receive the data and
integrate it and we think the open standards is the best way to
do it. This way it is available not just that Google but to
anybody who can use that information in a secure way on
whatever products they have or services they have.
So I think the most important thing we are doing and what I
would suggest is that we have these standards that
organizations get behind like, for example, for alerts, we have
a standard called Common Alerts Protocol, which is being
adopted by a lot of organizations. I know in particular USGS is
doing it for earthquakes for example.
So as much as possible getting information in these
standard formats so that it is very easy for us to integrate.
Once they are in those formats, it is not a problem for us to
integrate all of that data. It is just when they are not
machine-readable it requires a lot of handholding and manual
work, frankly.
Mrs. Brooks. How might you suggest that we educate everyone
about the need for this open format?
Mr. Stepka. I think it will come up probably in, as many
things do, in terms of funding; resources for--make sure those
resources are focusing on writing to standards. It does require
that organizations, Government organizations take the data they
have and take the effort to change it so that it can be made
available through these secure protocols, and I think that does
require some resources.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Very briefly, Mr. Payne, the work you are doing of course,
at Palantir, to support the disaster relief efforts is truly
impressive. I would like to ask you a similar question. As a
result of lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy, what are some
of those lessons? I know you shared some of those with us, but
with respect to the users of your technology?
Mr. Payne. I think that one of the first and most important
lessons learned is the value of connectivity. What we saw in
Hurricane Sandy is if you look at open 3-1-1 data, which is a
great example of governments embracing open data and pushing
out non-urgent requests for help from the community, to make
that data publicly available.
Before Hurricane Sandy, you saw a--something that reflected
the heat map of the population density of New York City by and
large. Then afterwards, there were discrete areas that were
completely gone from requests for help because they had lost
connectivity.
So the first lesson is the absolute importance of
empowering people to have ways to share that message to
communicate directly with individuals. You know, at the end of
the day a car battery will power an iPhone or an Android phone
150 times, but how do you make that link up such that that
device stays hot or active in days after a storm? So that is
one lesson.
That being said, technology can be used and built to work
in areas where there is not that connectivity. The second
lesson is that the more data that you can fuse, the better
cohesive picture you can build.
Here one of the great things that happened after Hurricane
Sandy is NOAA released very good high-resolution, overhead
imagery of the affected areas. They flew an aircraft along the
coastlines and made that data publicly available and so in
tools like Google Maps or Palantir's geographic capabilities,
we were able to actually look at where there was sand in the
streets, where there were broken-down cars, where there were
destroyed buildings, et cetera, and then use that to allocate
resources to help those people affected by that get back on our
feet.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you very much.
My time is now up. I now recognize the Ranking Member of
the subcommittee, the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Payne, for
any questions.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Cardenas, you know, most utility companies have a
presence on social media, but PSE&G has been a trailblazer in
that regard. What differentiates public services' social media
efforts from others in the utility industry?
Mr. Cardenas. I think that the key differentiator is that
we had real people speaking with real people. Our employees
live in our service territories. They were experiencing the
same exact things are customers were. We were very transparent.
Our people on Twitter had the latest information. They knew
about our challenges. They knew about time lines to restore
certain communities. They did the best they could up front when
we had individual responses. Later on they turned to more
geographically encompassing messages.
We were empathetic. I think we were very well-connected to
each of those who sent us a tweet and we did our very, very
best to get timely, very real information out to the public.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Have Government entities
responsible for disaster relief reached out to PSE&G? To ask
them their expertise in developing these best practices?
Mr. Cardenas. We have as late as yesterday, we had a
meeting with a number of other utilities, other entities to
share amongst us our best practices and our successes both in
government throughout the storm whether it be the municipal
mayors, whether it be the Governor's office, the Congressman's
offices, we work clearly with them all the time to get their
messages and our messages out to ensure we reinforced each
other and make sure people were well-informed.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Stepka, you know, I represent the 10th District in New
Jersey which was greatly impacted by Hurricane Sandy. I
understand that you had a strong presence in the area. Would
you elaborate on what you did with the State and for the
residents of New Jersey?
Mr. Stepka. Sure. I think the most notable thing we did is
through the crisis map I think gave people a lot of warning
about where the map--wherever the storm was moving and how it
was going and evacuation routes things like that, shelter
information.
I think the issues about the gas stations as well, I think
was also New Jersey as well. That was probably one of the
responses we did and we worked through our tools to provide
people information.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Okay. What can we do in the region
to prepare for the next crisis?
Mr. Stepka. I think the lesson learned about getting data
in advance in these available to--in these open formats I think
is important. There is always more information we can get. I
think it is interesting about the fuel information, the longer-
term time to recover from the storm.
It is important to figure out ways to get that data in
advance, but I think at the same time with crowdsourcing, we
always have to find the right balance between getting good
information and making sure it is accurate.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Beckerman, how do you feel--how can the Federal, State,
and local governments and first responders best leverage the
social media in data integration the tools available on the
internet and disaster preparedness and response activities
moving forward?
Mr. Beckerman. I think one of the most important things is
having an open line of communication between the technology
companies and the Government and that appears to be happening.
Social media and the internet can help before a storm like
we have seen in the hurricanes and tornadoes. When you have
some advanced warning, you can send messages out on social
media and let people know the shelter in place or evacuate
during a disaster as we have seen with help--responding to
people to get real-time help, and then after a disaster to make
sure that relief and volunteers and money and blood and things
like that are getting to communities that need it most.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. This should be an on-going
conversation.
Mr. Beckerman. On-going, absolutely.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Not waiting for the next disaster
to happen, correct?
Mr. Beckerman. That is correct.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Okay, okay.
Let's see. Mr. Payne, you have identified development of
clear data retention policies as a means of preventing
sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands and bad
actors. How do you envision these policies being developed and
should they be directive or voluntary?
Mr. Payne. In some cases, that they will be directive.
Obviously, personal information about someone's health
information or health status is a very good example that falls
under HIPAA law.
The important thing is that an organization does not know
what is happening to the data that they are sharing. Them
making the decision to share that data becomes a very difficult
decision to make.
If it is an all-or-nothing, far too often the answer has to
be nothing, but if there is abilities to technologically drive
subsets of data, remove personally identifiable information, et
cetera, that can empower that organization or that individual
to make the decision of yes.
At the end of the day, those most vulnerable during
disaster are those most vulnerable before the disaster and
often it is systemic health concerns and that sort of thing.
Knowing who those people are and where they are can be very
useful for first responders to ensure that they have the
correct medication, the correct resources that they need, but
redacting that information or removing that information after
the disaster is something that I think would make it much more
likely for the decision to be yes to share that information.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Thank you.
Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you very much.
The Chairwoman will now recognize other Members of the
subcommittee for questions they may wish to ask the witnesses.
In accordance with our committee rules and practice, I plan
to recognize Members who were present at the start of the
hearing by seniority on the subcommittee, and those coming in
later will be recognized in the order of their arrival.
At this time, the Chairwoman now recognizes the gentleman
from New York, Mr. King, former chair of the Homeland Security
Committee, for questions.
Mr. King. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Let me thank you for
holding this hearing which is especially vital and it certainly
has a real significance coming so soon after Sandy.
Let me join Mr. Payne in commending Mr. Cardenas for the
outstanding job that PSE&G did in New Jersey. Unfortunately, we
did not have the same experience in New York. I am not trying
to drag you into a cross-border dispute here, but in my
district, and the district next to mine, we have about $8
billion in damage, and that we can cope with.
What we could not cope with was almost a total lack of
communication between the consumers and the public utility,
Long Island Power Authority. It was again, almost impossible to
get information, get answers. Again, I say almost a total
breakdown in communication.
From what Mr. Payne has said, and certainly your testimony
today, it is clear that PSE&G was making substantial use of
social media. I know you are working within New Jersey, but are
you making any effort to reach beyond New Jersey to share your
experiences with other utilities throughout the country?
Mr. Cardenas. Absolutely. Absolutely. We have met with
ConEdison, with LIPA, with members from Connecticut to share
our best practices. We have shown them what we did, how we were
able to in real time ramp up to train our employees to respond
on Twitter.
It has become a brand-new technology that grows every day,
changes every day. So you have to stay ahead and we chose to
embrace it and to be very transparent.
I think that is the one thing we told the other utilities.
Please, provide information you have and that is important and
that it be done with people who can speak with people, not to
people, because everybody is kind-of on the same boat here and
we are all trying to help each other. So we have met with
utilities in the surrounding States.
Mr. King. Can you tell us if they have been listening to
you?
Mr. Cardenas. I think only----
Mr. King. You know, I am not trying to drag you----
Mr. Cardenas [continuing]. Only time will tell, and I am
sure they will. I think the energy industry, the utilities tend
to share information, we just hope that everybody takes it on
in a very timely manner.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Cardenas.
Once again, Mr. Payne is ahead of the rest of us, he gets
the break in New York with the good service, I mean, in New
Jersey, and we in New York are trying to, you know, catch up.
But anyway.
Don, thanks for bringing the witness today.
Let me ask Mr. Stepka--really I guess expanding on your
testimony with the Chairwoman, can you describe the
partnerships that you have established with first responders
and Government agencies as Google rolls out its crisis response
efforts and also if you could again again emphasize what you
did with Sandy and how that would apply to the future?
Mr. Stepka. Sure. I think the Red Cross is one of the key
partnerships we work with very closely--actually for things
like shelter information and resources for recovery.
With the city of New York, we were very engaged as well. We
created actually a separate crisis map just for the city of New
York. We had actually special data that was available for them
for evacuation routes and things like the affected areas.
Of course we work with NOAA as well for weather
information. They are also working with a CAP standard for
alerts. It is very helpful for like when storms are coming and
we can alert that information to our users. With Sandy those
partnerships, a lot of those were in place already, so we were
able to really respond more effectively.
Mr. King. Do you recall if you have had any relationships
on Long Island, Nassau County, Suffolk County, or the State
government?
Mr. Stepka. You know, I don't recall off the top of my
head. We can get back to you on that.
Mr. King. Okay, if you would and if not, let me know, and I
will, you know, contact the county executives. From listening
to your testimony and the way it was described, I think it
would be very vital.
Mr. Stepka. Okay.
Mr. King. All of us were really caught off guard with
Sandy.
I yield back, Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
The Chairwoman now recognizes the gentlelady from New York,
Ms. Clarke.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and to our Ranking
Member, Mr. Payne, to our distinguished panelists.
I wanted to sort-of, a follow-through on some of the train
of thought here, because what we saw with the Sandy event was a
unique confluence of conditions and one of the things that
have--being a New Yorker--has concerned me is the way that the
mobile phone scenario degrades very rapidly in those types of
environments.
You couple that with a water event so that perhaps Mr.
Payne's idea of using a car battery becomes a nonstarter and
then the going down of the grid, now you know we have no way of
communicating.
So I would be interested in sort of getting a sense of
other ways that we can perhaps tap into the technology world
beyond that affected environment to bring relief as rapidly as
possible to those environments.
Has there been any discussion about satellite technology
and how that in some way can be of assistance, and then finally
just a description of your partnerships with New York
responders and agencies around such an event such as Sandy--now
I spoke about a natural disaster, but in the event of a
terrorist attack which we have experienced in New York City,
the same scenario plays out once everyone starts getting on
their mobile phones at the same time.
It becomes you know--if you can get through to someone you
are lucky and it seems to go out in concentric circles. The
closer you are, the harder it is but after a while there is a
cascading effect. So can you just sort of share with me your
thoughts around that? Because that was a major concern, for
many days, quite frankly, after the event in New York City.
Mr. Stepka. The first part of your question about the
usefulness of mobile phones during a crisis. It is a problem--
of course if we don't have power. That is the first thing you
need to have and there are, I think, very creative ideas of
getting around that issue and they are on a different grid so
they tend to have their own power sources separately.
You mentioned the ideas of satellites or other
technologies. I think it is something we have done a lot of
internal discussions around, like what technologies would be
useful as a back-up system in this situation? A lot of them
have advantages and disadvantages. I think they are worth
looking into more deeply and making investments overall, but we
don't have anything now in place for that.
I do think, I mean, all of these tools are limited by the
fact that if you don't have connectivity, you can't get them. I
do think it is something that we are focusing more immediately
on, which is probably more cost-effective and that is getting
people more prepared before-hand.
So the cool thing about a storm like Sandy--you can see it
coming, unlike a tornado which unfortunately gives very little
warning, but with a situation like, you know it is coming, we
can actually give people a lot more certainty and give them
instructions and ideas about how to prepare for it so they
don't have to deal with it as badly; either evacuating early or
at least getting supplies ready for the emergency.
So I think that something we can do a much better job at
and I think it is something we are looking at closely.
The second question, I think you were asking around--more
around I guess terrorists events and that sort of thing. For
the most part, we have been focusing on a natural disasters. In
a terrorist attack we did actually help with the Boston
bombing. We turned on our Person Finder so people could find
out where their loved ones were during the crisis--after the
crisis because there was a lot of chaos right then.
I think in general it is a very different set of issues and
I think it is important to look at them very carefully. Like
you see there is a bad actor in play, you need to understand
what is the motivations and how they are engaging on this event
and how do we make sure that we be very careful how we respond?
Mr. Payne. Today, there exists a system for NGO's focus on
response to use voice. It is called to the Wireless Priority
Service. That is over a decade old and it doesn't have any
allocations for data. To change that to allow folk to use data
would reduce the congestion on networks and allow people to be
more effective in communicating.
Further known are the First Net initiative looking long-
term at something that I think can really help. It is a Nation-
wide 500 megahertz' worth of spectrum allocation for specific
data transmission during emergency response.
My understanding right now is that that is only allocated
for official Government agencies. If there could be small
portions of that system, of that First Net system, that could
be allocated for individuals at FEMA shelters or Red Cross
shelters or NGOs to do quick communications to check in with
their loved ones, I think that would go a long way towards
empowering people to communicate in wide-scale disasters.
Ms. Clarke. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
I thank you for your responses.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
The Chairwoman now recognizes the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Gentlemen, I appreciate your testimony.
I am interested in prevention of things that we have seen
happen and wondering what you see as the Federal Government's
role, and in particularly in cases, if we could use the Boston,
the bombing at the marathon and the--and the Facebook postings
in advance of that.
How should--how do you see that that should be monitored?
Should it be monitored in the first place? How should it be
monitored? What would the triggers be? Should that information
go to law enforcement? Who should send it?
I think there is a lot of questions there because I think
there is some expectation that this stuff is open source that
it no longer bears the same privacy concerns that maybe your
email would once you posted on Facebook.
Is that true, and if that is available, should or should we
not be using that to safeguard our communities? I would just
like to have a continuing dialogue.
I guess, Mr. Stepka, anybody would like to answer?
Mr. Stepka. Sure. I think it is a very important question
to get that right and we do take this very seriously. I think
in general, all this public information that is available on
social media, I think can be a source, I think for law
enforcement to look for potential bad actors and I think they
can do that.
In general instances, that being posted publicly, that can
be reviewed by law enforcement without any need to get
subpoenaed or even working with either Google or other
technology companies. They can do that directly.
I think, you know, that is pretty much--I think the most
important thing to think about with that. This is a--in a free
society it is a hard balance to figure out how to deal with
these kinds of information out there. There is many--there is
usually a very small number of people who are bad actors and
they get lost in the noise, I think, unless you are looking for
them specifically.
Mr. Beckerman. From our perspective, privacy is very
important. Our companies take the privacy of the users very
seriously either every day and also during disasters, and there
are a lot of tools on-line, but we feel that law enforcement
should use the same warrants and due process and that they do
in the analog world that they should apply to the digital
world.
Mr. Perry. So in that case, where there have been or were
Facebook postings, who would have--whose responsibility is it
to monitor? How would they find in this huge universe of
postings, how would they find that in a timely--whoever they
are--first of all, who do you see?
Who are the ``they?'' Is it law enforcement? Is it the
Department of Justice? Department of Defense? Is it the CIA?
Who is it that would do it? Is it you folks? How would they go
about finding that needle in the haystack on a continual basis,
if you have any thoughts on that?
Mr. Stepka. One thing we can do is, and this is related to
YouTube when people would post either things which violate our
terms of service around hate speech or terrorist activity, that
sort of thing, if someone flagged that information we do take
it down.
So we do rely on our users to help police it in that sense.
I think, like I mentioned before, if there is public postings,
I would leave it to law enforcement to look at the public
postings. If they are not public, they do have to go through
their normal process to get access to the information, the same
as any other kind of subpoena process.
Mr. Perry. So when you take it down--if it falls within the
criteria that you find objectionable per your company's
policies, do you then report? Do you feel an obligation to
report in the instances of--in the instance of these--these
Facebook postings or these videos in particular, is--should
there be an obligation?
Was there any obligation other than just taking it down
because of course that doesn't help law enforcement, that
doesn't alert citizens or the authorities to what might be
impending? What is your protocol--what should the protocol be
there?
Mr. Stepka. Yes, specifically on YouTube I know that if a
user flags something as being terrorist, a terrorist activity
or basically a bomb-making-type thing, we do take it down.
You know, I don't know the answer to your question about
whether we do then inform law enforcement of that. I can find
out that and get back to you.
Mr. Perry. All right, thank you.
Madam Chairwoman, I yield back.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
At this time I recognize gentleman from Mississippi, Mr.
Palazzo, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
I thank our witnesses here today for their testimony and
answering our questions.
I represent the Mississippi's 4th Congressional District
which spans the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast. We got hit
pretty hard during Hurricane Katrina and that was in 2005,
almost 8 years ago.
It feels like a long time, a very long time, but the
remnants of the storm are still heavily present with us every
day and we are still recovering. But I would like to point out
Facebook was still in its infancy, relatively speaking.
It was almost nonexistent to many people. Twitter was
nonexistent. The first iPhone wouldn't come out for almost
another year. Last year, Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast and
there were millions of people on social media sharing
information, watching live Twitter feeds, and checking up on
their loved ones. So just in a few short years we have seen
social media explode, and I think most of my questions have
already been answered.
We have talked about lessons learned, but if any of you
have the experience, can you kind of compare the technologies
that we had during Hurricane Katrina, the lessons that we
learned that brought us up to the successful information
sharing that we had during Hurricane Sandy?
Mr. Stepka, we will just go left to right.
Mr. Stepka. Sure. I think the biggest change would be with,
I think, the mobile phone technology, it is a major change the
people have access to communications especially whereever they
are and also if their main lines go down. I think the second,
of course, is social media.
No question that has been a big difference. I think people
are more connected imminently in that sense and have many
outlets and many ways of contacting both authoritative
organizations as well as each other so they can tell their
family members that they are okay. That sort of thing.
Mr. Payne. I believe one of the biggest fundamental
differences that social media has provided is the efficiency of
the supply and demand of those that want to help and those that
need help.
What we saw in Hurricane Sandy is we had one group of
veterans, a couple hundred people in total, harnessing over
14,000 volunteers from the community and those volunteers by
fusing a bunch of technology requests for help, all sorts of
data were efficiently tasked to muck basements, to remove the
sand from parking lots and playgrounds, etc.
The net effect being that very quickly after the disaster
folks' houses had the material removed that prevented mold from
growing in those houses and those houses being destroyed.
So looking ahead, I believe that we will see an ever-
increased ability to harness more goodwill and more help from
individuals in the surrounding areas to help people get back on
their feet. I think that is the best sort of siren of social
media.
Mr. Beckerman. Yes, thank you. I think you explained the
differences perfectly by the fact that Facebook had been only a
year in existence, Twitter didn't exist, there were no iPhones.
So during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, only half of the
internet users used on-line sources to find news, and today
that is obviously much higher. Only 25 percent used on-line
sources to check in on loved ones and let people know they were
all right and things like that. Today obviously as we heard
from the rest of the panel and from the Members of that number
is much higher.
After Hurricane Katrina 13 million people went on-line in
the United States to donate and again, today that is higher. So
we have seen as the technology has grown the benefits of the
internet and social media really help people, and I think it
could have been obviously a benefit during Hurricane Katrina as
well.
Mr. Palazzo. All right, well I definitely agree with
everything that you said. I can tell you just the other day we
had a severe weather event and my phone went off and I did not
apply for the app--I guess it was just the phone service just
notifying us that we are about to hit some severe weather on
the Mississippi Gulf Coast and I was very grateful for that.
I have seen--as we have seen in the tornadoes that have
recently happened in my district and all across the country, it
does allow people from all across United States to help in some
form or fashion even if it is donations or having people come
out and help fill sandbags, remove mold.
I think that is a fantastic--and my final question would
be--and this is for everyone again, what suggestions or tips do
you have for Americans that are actually users of the
technology, the social media, during a disaster? What tips
would you provide, if anybody?
Mr. Stepka. I think the first tip I would give; I think it
is good to have a plan in advance of an emergency. Every family
should be thinking about this in advance. They should know how
to contact each other, they should have--whatever means they
want to do it--whether electronic or some back-up ways, they
should do that.
So I think preparation is the best thing for everyone.
During an emergency itself I think power is essential. If we
think about, you know, water, other kinds of resources you want
to have ready, but having power connectivity I think are really
important, so you can have access to communications.
Mr. Cardenas. For us, from a utility perspective, don't
take for granted that we know that you don't have power. So it
is good to know that information because you know maybe two
blocks from you, right, people may not have power, you may get
power, they don't have power, so please be accurate.
You don't have power, let us know. Because it may be that
you have a problem that is only localized to your block or to
your service. So provide information. The more the better.
Mr. Palazzo. All right.
Well thank you, Madam Chairwoman. It is a very informative
hearing. Thank you.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
I have a couple of questions kind of following up on that a
little bit. How can our emergency management officials monitor
and validate the information that they received or the power
companies, how can you or do you monitor and validate?
We learned this and that SMEM chat on Twitter last week.
Those officials shared with us, how can the private sector help
the emergency managers and first responders efficiently
collect, validate, share this information posted by the public
during the disaster? Any suggestions as to how your experiences
and work can inform and, I guess, I will start with Mr.
Cardenas.
Mr. Cardenas. During the storm and right now real-time we
have people on Twitter, on Facebook, and information that is
posted is shared not only with us but back with municipal
officials, State officials, and I think that is critical to
have that partnership between the public and the private sector
and that it is a two-way street.
They come to us with information, we go to them. During
events any times there is false information posted and working
with that municipal official you can correct the information.
You can provide--it is not--you are not going to be out 3
weeks.
It may be 3 days. That kind of sets people to be on the
right page as to what they have to plan for. Many of these
events are real-time, so that real-time information is
critical.
Mrs. Brooks. Mr. Stepka.
Thank you.
Mr. Stepka. Yes, I was going to say I agree. I think that
is important to look at the information as being--it could be
imperfect in the crisis and is going to evolve. You will
iterate on the information.
I think collaborating among agencies and organizations is
critical as well as the public because the public can help
validate information.
I think the crowdsourcing idea makes a lot of sense in this
context, but we have to think about where it is appropriate and
how to act on it when we need to validate the information
before you act on it--or corroborate that information
elsewhere.
Mr. Payne. There truly is a risk of data obesity as we grow
with significant amounts of information streams coming on in
the future. I think that robust data fusion capabilities with
data analysis capabilities can empower that analyst to tease
through the information that is relevant to them, vet it
against other sources, and use of social media as part of a
holistic approach to information to make resource allocation
decisions.
Mrs. Brooks. With respect to the work that you have all
been doing, just last week FEMA released 2013 National
Preparedness Report, which did identify the need to mature the
role of public-private partnerships as a new National area for
improvement, and this was also highlighted during our Twitter
chat last week.
Based on the incredible work that your companies are doing,
what has your actual interaction been with Federal, State, and
local governments, and has FEMA reached out to you all
specifically, and have you worked with FEMA?
I will, you know, ask Mr. Stepka and Payne specifically
initially because I am sure you have worked with them, Mr.
Cardenas. Or----
Mr. Cardenas. Yes.
Mrs. Brooks. Yes.
Mr. Stepka. Yes, we have worked with FEMA and we have
talked with them about how we can better work together to help
support their efforts. So I think I would like to do that more
as well.
I think at every level of government we have been working
on it with different situations. I mentioned we worked with the
city of New York as well in the crisis.
I think we look for scalable ways to reach out to
Government organizations. It is hard to reach out to all of
them, so I think it is important again to go back to standards.
If we have standards laid out, it doesn't require that we have
relationships with every single organization, every level of
government. If we all can agree on certain kinds of interaction
with secure data, that will take care of a lot of those
interactions.
Mr. Payne. I think this relationship highlights the
importance of open data. FEMA does a great job with certain
data sources that they can publicly release making them
available so that organizations like Google, ourselves, and
other response organizations can leverage that information. We
would certainly welcome the opportunity to engage them to see
on both sides how we can improve that relationship.
During Hurricane Sandy, we did work with the Office of
Executive Management at New York City. I think they did a
fantastic job interfacing with the dozens of organizations to
help as much as possible and I think that was a success story
of a governmental-social sector interaction.
It is something that we take a very strong commitment to
openness at Palantir Technologies and with all of the work we
have done, be it a flood, tornado, or hurricane have ensured
that all the data that was generated by mobile devices
integrated et cetera was made available to relevant authorities
to ensure that they had access to all of that information that
they--other than the personally identifiable information that
was removed.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you. I would ask the Ranking Member, the
gentleman from New Jersey, for any further questions.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Madam
Chairwoman.
Mr. Cardenas, I had a great deal of interest in smart grid
technology and have had conversations with your company
officials as well in reference to it, and in your testimony you
explained the smart grid technology enables utility companies
to pinpoint problems and restore service more quickly. How does
the smart grid technology differ from 20th Century technology?
Mr. Cardenas. Well, equipment in a smart network talks to
the components of that system. It can reconfigure automatically
the way a neighborhood is fed. It relies not on human beings
doing individual steps; information between these components
can automatically restore services in many cases.
In addition to that, it provides efficiencies with the
setting up of a circuit you are going to work on remotely so
that you don't have to send people to each piece of equipment
and put it in a way that people can work on it.
For instance, we had 4,000 people who came to help us out,
and we had to, every morning, send them out to do work. It took
us a long time to allow them to be able to do the work because
we had to make it safe.
With a smart grid, with a supervisory control and
information system, we could do that remotely and gain
efficiencies in the actual time and leveraging that resource to
get the restoration done.
So a smart grid is quantum leaps ahead of what we had 10
years ago, 20 years ago. It is now the way we go and it is
where we are hoping to make very large investments in.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. So that is basically how the smart
grid technology would improve responses during disasters. Is
that correct?
Mr. Cardenas. It will do it both ways. It will do it with
the efficiency of the people working to restore service as well
as the automated restoration associated with reconfiguring the
way the grid is fed.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Thank you.
Mr. Stepka, in your testimony, you note that, you know, the
affordable high-speed internet access, you know, is necessary
to be tech ready for disasters. Nearly 100 million Americans do
not have access to broadband and one-third do not have access
to internet, and, you know, I discussed that a bit yesterday
when we were in my office.
So from your perspective, how does the digital divide
undermine disaster response efforts, and how would you address
the problem?
Mr. Stepka. I think it is a very important issue. I think
it is in addition to crisis response we also work on this issue
in general trying to provide a better internet access to people
around the world actually.
As you know, we have launched an effort to bring high-speed
internet access starting in Kansas City, Austin, and Provo, and
I think the idea being is in general this is very important.
Obviously, we need to have a way to provide internet access
to everybody as well as high-speed access in their home. I
think so that everybody has access to these great tools and
also seeing the advantages of being connected not just in a
crisis.
I think it is a challenge, what we are doing, in general
and we are focusing a lot of resources on. There are a couple
of challenges which are different. One challenge is in urban
environment versus rural environments. Rural environments are
very hard to reach using fiber, for example, and usually a
wireless technology is probably more efficient.
So we have experimented working with the FCC on a different
technology which provides potentially the ability to provide
access to people using the TV white spaces, which is a low
bandwidth--sorry low-frequency bandwidth that can be used to
reach rural parts of the world.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Thank you.
Madam Chairwoman, I yield back the balance, and I would
like to thank all of the witnesses for their testimony.
Mrs. Brooks. Okay. Thank you.
I have a question.
Mr. Beckerman, I will start with you and others might want
to chime in, but what are--in following up--what are some
things that the Federal Government should do in forming
partnerships with the private sector to take advantage of the
new technologies? I might ask whether or not you are aware you
represent a number of associations or I am sorry a number of
companies and incredibly innovative companies.
Are there any new technologies we can be anticipating that
can be used that you can talk with us with respect to social
media for emergencies and disasters, but how can we better
connect up the Federal Government with these new technologies?
Mr. Beckerman. Well, I would say this hearing today is a
great start opening the dialogue. So thank you for having the
hearing.
You know, the most important thing is for private sector,
our companies, and the Federal Government to have an open
dialogue and talk. The technology is evolving, and as we go
through each one of these unfortunate situations, lessons are
learned and the Federal Government gets better and our
companies get better and the public gets better at
understanding how to use the technology.
Crowdsourcing is a very powerful tool, both during a
disaster to help bring volunteers, and after disaster to help
bring money and volunteers and rebuild.
So, you know, we just ask that the Federal Government--and
they have been doing a great job so far--is keep an open
dialogue with our companies and share data where they can, and
we will educate the public on how they can use this technology.
Mrs. Brooks. Do you believe that the Federal Government is
improving its use of social media for emergency alerts and
preparedness or what is your opinion on that?
Mr. Beckerman. Absolutely. It is improving every time, and
as we have seen from some of the protocols from FEMA, they are
already using social media to send out alerts telling people to
get their shelter in place or evacuate and that is a great
step.
Mrs. Brooks. Any others on the panel would like to comment
on about how we, you know, work even better together and any
emerging technologies?
Mr. Stepka. I would echo everything he said as well.
I think it is very helpful to work collaboratively on these
ideas. The technology is still evolving. I think it is still
early days in some ways.
I think working together on open formats for data to be
shared in a secure way that is appropriate using crowdsourcing
in an appropriate way as well is a very important thing in this
context.
But I think there has been a lot of good progress to date.
I am actually very encouraged by as I mentioned what the White
House said recently on data standards, and I think those
general movements are all in the right direction.
Mrs. Brooks. Okay.
Mr. Payne.
Mr. Payne. To echo the other panelists, I concur that we
are moving in the right direction.
I am heartened by many of the openness data initiatives and
open data standards. The White House CTO has done a fantastic
job pushing new standards that make computer comprehensible
formats the norm.
One good example I will offer of this is nonprofit data.
Today nonprofit data is publicly available, but as a scanned
piece of paper the computer cannot read very well and it takes
hundreds of thousands of man-hours to rewrite the database that
exists with information that is supposed to be public data.
So in the new budget proposal is the ability for that to be
electronic information and thus much, much easier for tech-
knowledgeable organizations to leverage the data.
There are one-and-a-half--1.4 million nonprofit
organizations in America today and having the ability to engage
them in a disaster or in an emergency would have a lot of
benefit to those on the ground and that open data could go a
long way towards that engagement.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Mr. Cardenas, any thoughts you might have?
Mr. Cardenas. I will give you one example of the
collaboration and how we are going to be able to help.
I don't--in the not-very-distant future, I can see a first
responder from a municipality going out with a phone taking a
picture, sending that to us, telling us what equipment is at
that location the picture was taken from from and then take
action on that.
The collaboration between the utility and the way it
formats this information and its ability to speak and connect
with that device will be critical as we move forward into the
future where whether it be crowdsourcing or just the use of
these devices to locate and identify equipment that has been
damaged is going to continue to be critical. That I am hoping I
will be able to see in the next 9 to 12 months.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Thank you, very much.
Mr. Payne.
Mr. Payne of New Jersey. Madam Chairwoman, I ask unanimous
consent to submit testimony from Humanity Road and the Business
Emergency Operation Center Alliance of New Jersey to the
record.
Mrs. Brooks. Pardon? Oh, yes. Oh, thank you.
Thank you. Without objection, that will be admitted.
[The information follows:]
Statement Submitted For the Record by Ranking Member Donald M. Payne,
Jr.
Prepared Statement of Christine Thompson, President and Co-Founder of
Humanity Road
Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and distinguished Members of
the subcommittee. My name is Christine Thompson, president and co-
founder of Humanity Road, a 501c3 Public Charity that specializes in
digital disaster relief. In support of its mission, Humanity Road
volunteers harness internet and mobile communications technology to
collect, verify, and route information on-line during sudden onset
disaster. Using the internet, we research and share public safety
information and direct the public to Governmental and aid agencies that
provide disaster assistance. Since 2010 Humanity Road supported over
500 emerging events in 53 countries and helped develop and execute 11
joint social media exercises for private- and public-sector partners.
We responded in social media for tornado outbreaks, hurricanes,
earthquakes, tsunamis, flash floods, blizzards, and man-made events and
activated to provide surge support monitoring of social media by local,
county, and State-level officials. In the past 3 years we watched the
amazing growth of mobile and internet-based communications used by the
impacted public in the United States. During our operations, including
Hurricane Sandy, we documented the effective use of social media and
technology tools in fast-moving and slow-moving events. Social Media
has been used to facilitate rescues, reunite loved ones, manage
spontaneous donations, and collect situational information. We are here
to provide examples of how technology has been used, the benefits and
challenges, and ask for your support on four specific areas:
1. Engage Humanitarian Technology Partners
2. Manage Response--Structure for the Use of Technology Partners
3. Manage Preparedness--Plan for Technology in Training and
Exercises
4. Accelerating Lessons Learned and Innovation.
The Belle Harbor community response in Rockaway, New York after
Superstorm Sandy provides an excellent example of a whole community
approach to disaster response and how social media, digital disaster
response, and new technology are transforming preparedness, response, &
recovery. This community is positioned on a peninsula accessible only
by bridge. The area was inundated by storm surge, sand, and winds
causing a power and communications blackout with catastrophic damage.
In the face of these challenges local residents, through the use of
social media and technology partners, catalyzed a recovery effort that
serviced over 10,000 people a day. Two hundred volunteers managed the
operation daily. St. Francis de Sales School had no functioning phones,
power, or heat. The nearest Red Cross Shelter was more than 30 miles
away and transportation and gas were nonexistent or challenged. By
request, a collaborative technology team delivered an innovative
communications solution on-site within 24 hours. And within a few days,
this local community-led effort had their own citizen-run command
center with satellite communications and Wifi hotspot. The command
center solution was operating on generator and solar-powered lights. It
became the central coordination point for volunteer coordination, field
survey teams, feeding, donation management, medical assessments, and
community response teams that helped with debris removal to name a few.
The community volunteer team at St. Francis included Monsignor Brown,
local youth, residents, and spontaneous volunteers from throughout the
city. The community used social media to list ``essentials''
controlling donation and volunteer management. A mobile medic team also
went door-to-door taking water and supplies, performed health
screenings on the vulnerable populations, particularly the elderly who
were stranded without elevator service in high-rise buildings.
Challenges remained; the community needed to warn its residents about a
second dangerous storm that was approaching. Paper bulletins were
posted on church doors, paper handouts made in multiple languages and
locals resorted to using bullhorns.
The collaborative communications solution team at St. Francis de
Sales provided over a quarter-million dollars in communications assets
and services. The lead partner cost for spearheading this physical
deployment was only $5,000. The solution team included nonprofits such
as Humanity Road, Disaster Tech Lab, Information Technology Disaster
Relief Center (ITDRC), and other private-sector partners including
Aruba Networks, Viasat, Cisco, and Goal Zero. Each played a role in
empowering the local community response efforts through technology.
This innovative approach was not a Joint Resource Center (JRC) or
Disaster Resource Center (DRC) launched and run by FEMA. It was a Whole
Community Resource Center which put the recovery at the local level,
not State or Federal. The FEMA Innovation Team is studying these local
response activities and working on recommended improvements in the
design of the disaster recovery center models. The approach used in
Belle Harbor worked and not only because of the innovative use of
social media, communications technology, and power solutions; but
because the solution provided was for the community by the community.
Technology is only useful when people know how to use it, it must
fulfill the local need and not intrude on or complicate the primary
mission of the local disaster response and recovery efforts.
In summary, the effective use and implementation of technology and
social media can rapidly reach populations isolated from the response
chain due to communications and power impacts. Digital volunteerism and
digital response organizations in the social media age can help empower
a community to take part in their own recovery efforts. This can also
provide relief that mitigates traditional response chain issues in
large-scale events reducing the recovery period and associated costs.
However, whenever innovation meets implementation, there are
challenges. There is a gap in assessing communications outages as
currently, there is no publicly-available map for communications
availability or outages. There are also challenges in response
reporting, preparedness planning, and measuring effective social media
and technology mobilization. Having provided examples of Humanity
Road's Rockaway deployment and considering the benefits and challenges
faced there, we ask for your support in four specific areas:
1. Engage Humanitarian Technology Partners.--Humanitarian
technology disaster response organizations work both on-line
and also deploy into the impacted area. These teams provide a
great opportunity for improving the speed and accuracy of
initial damage assessments by improving communications. We
recommend disaster response officials and organizations take
advantage of using volunteer-based disaster response
organizations that are skilled in the use of internet and
mobile communications technologies including social media. This
can provide a cost-effective solution to a high-volume problem
and closes gaps between non-technical Government organizations
and high-tech disaster response techniques. These humanitarian
partners work with equipment and service providers to deliver
solutions that meet local needs and participate in disaster
preparedness training and exercises to build resilience and
readiness.
2. Manage Response--Structure for the Use of Technology Partners.--
We recommend that officials review and designate a suggested
reporting structure within the Incident Command Structure for
technology deployment activities such as surge support media
monitoring and crowdsourcing during disaster.
3. Manage Preparedness--Plan for Technology in Training and
Exercises.--Technology-driven communications solutions such as
social media, crowdsourcing, crisis mapping, and surge support
for social media should be included in preparedness planning
and exercises. Training is also needed to build basic skills in
local, county, and State organizations. The existing grant
process is tied to county and State government and is
geography-centric. Digital disaster response is not always tied
to a specific geography. We recommend that grants be made
available to non-governmental technology organizations for
preparedness and response initiatives to build competence and
resilience with consideration that these initiatives may be
regional or National in scope.
4. Accelerating Lessons Learned and Innovation.--We recommend that
Congress adopt innovation and acceleration by supporting the
DHS Virtual Social Media Working Group and the FEMA Innovation
Team & FEMA Think Tank programs. These are working models that
can facilitate and accelerate process improvement in the area
of social media and technology. These partners help to identify
lessons learned and can test them in a fail-safe environment
for incubation, planning, and implementation. The FEMA
Innovation Team, which is part of the FEMA think tank is
working on a communications heat map that would provide the
public with availability of wireless communications and WIFI
hotspots during disaster. And the DHS Virtual Social Media
Working Group just published its newest document: Lessons
Learned: Hurricane Sandy.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit testimony. I will be glad
to answer any questions and can also elaborate on additional examples
of the effective use of technology and social media during disaster.
______
Statement Submitted For the Record by Ranking Member Donald M. Payne,
Jr.
Prepared Statement of BEOC Alliance
beoc alliance overview
The BEOC Alliance, a non-profit 501c3 organization, strives to
expand and strengthen the capacities of Government agencies (local,
county, State), business partners and non-Governmental organizations in
preventing, preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters
of magnitude. The Alliance's underlying goal is to improve private-
sector self-reliance and self-sufficiency during such events through
rapid information sharing, situational awareness, and common operating
pictures. The Business Emergency Operations Center (BEOC) is a means to
achieve these desired end-states.
The BEOC construct epitomizes an adaptable and scalable
communications hub as well as a private-sector node within the Homeland
Security Enterprise. The synergies produced through steady-state and
elevated operational activities emanates from an interactive
partnership triad composed of academia, Government, and the private
sector. Real-time situational awareness is more than a goal; it's a
functioning reality.
The BEOC functions as a business fusion center supported by a
formal research component based on a technology capabilities-centric
matrix. The BEOC Alliance continuously exchanges information through
weekly conference calls, alerts, portal postings, listserve
notifications, exercises, and symposia. When situations dictate,
members can quickly transition to a state of readiness for a rapid
response and realistic recovery with a physical or virtual BEOC
providing omni-directional communications vis-a-vis established
distributed networks.
Distributed communication networks support BEOC Alliance efforts
through a ``mash-up'' of information technologies and systems. The
research component of the BEOC program explores and evaluates an array
of communication technologies at the Crisis Comnmnication Center housed
at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Resultant findings become
thrust areas for improving interoperability and collaboration across
the entire breadth of the private sector.
beoc alliance talking paper
Primary Goal.--Business-to-Business assistance, collaboration, and
cooperation through information sharing.
Whole is greater than the sum of its parts philosophy
Knowledge-sharing community
Bottom-up organic network formed through collaborative
efforts of like-minded organizations and executives
Inclusive affiliations and memberships
FEMA National BEOC Initiative
CI/KR Sectors through DHS IP RCCC
U.S. Northern Command
Private-Sector Organizations--National and Local
Non-Government Organizations
Academic Institutions
What is the BEOC Alliance?
Member supported 501c3 non-profit organization
Certified Federal Government contractor
FEMA National BEOC Charter member
Business Emergency Operations Center (BEOC) Construct
A Communications Model
Omni-directional information sharing
Creates common operating picture for enhanced situational
awareness
A Practitioner's Tool
Aids in decision-making
Supports Private-sector readiness and operations
A Research Project
Technology Capabilities Matrix provides research roadmap
Ten identified capabilities
Research underpins first two construct components
Goals
Strengthen Private-Sector/Public-Sector/Department of
Defense Communication
All phases of Homeland Security and Homeland Defense
Emergency Management through adaptable BEOC implementations
Resource to the Private-Sector/Public-Sector/DoD in
implementing other BEOCs
Provide consultation and guidance to States and regions
developing BEOCs
Enable proactive business managers to cut through the chaos
during disasters
Ensure Access to timely, reliable, and actionable
information
Information sharing
Identify critical issues pre-event to avoid reactionary
behavior during disasters
Continued outreach and linkage of organic networks
Create common operating pictures
Resilience and restoration of vital functions and services
Maintain organizational resilience through information
exchanges, establishing priorities, and implementing plans
of action during the fluidity of crisis
Increase number of technology tools available to the private
sector for improving reach, connectivity, and redundancy
Advocate for the Private Sector
Help link public-sector agencies/organizations with
private-sector BEOCs
Scope of Activities
Ranges from local to National levels
Integrated research component
Continued research into networks, hardware, and
communication protocols
NJIT C4IF Lab a venue for experimentation
Formulation of Private Sector doctrine
Periodic cross-sector think-tank sessions
Host symposiums on Private-Sector/Public-Sector
communication and coordination issues
Operating Environment
Virtual during steady state
BEOC List serve
CyberCop Portal
BEOC Alliance Webpage
Recurring conference calls
Physical activation when circumstances warrant extended or
expanded operations
Events page
Multidisciplinary teams
Subject matter reach-back
Mrs. Brooks. At this time, I would like to ask Mr. Payne if
he has anything for closing, he would like to say before I
close out. Okay.
Thank you very much. I would very much like to thank this
panel for their very valuable testimony. I think we have
learned a lot. We have started a very important discussion.
What I think is happening with emergency managers, whether
it is municipal or State or Federal officials, your companies
are paving the way. You have created new technologies.
I am looking at the back of this actual hearing room is a
picture from 9/11 and what the technologies that you all
discussed whether it was People Finder, you know, whether it is
the mapping capabilities that would have been so critical
during that horrific time in our country's history.
So we truly have come a very long way, and as I talk about
the emergency technologies and knowing what is coming, I think
we can't even imagine as Mr. Cardenas just shared with us, you
know, the possibilities of what your companies and the
innovators and engineers and inventors in your companies are
creating.
We just ask that you continue to share those with
Government, with the public sector, with the volunteers. It is
amazing to me that 14,000 volunteers, you know, come together
quickly but that we already had a team of veterans in place to
help mobilize and that were trained and so it is a wonderful
marriage of, you know, the Government and the military and our
veterans and that point, you know, marrying up with volunteers
to really aid in recovery and save a lot of lives and save
homes and save property, but most importantly, save lives and
that is what I think your testimony here today has also shown.
I think we absolutely have some challenges that, you know,
everyone needs to be mindful of and some of those challenges,
you know, the--sadly, the few bad actors that do come up, the
privacy issues that we need to be mindful of, but I do think--
and the connectivity you have talked about, you know, without
power, none of this works, and we do need to continue to
explore and continue to advance and partner between the public
and the private sectors, and I just want to thank you for your
time. There may be questions submitted by others, and we look
forward to working with you in the future.
We plan on having another hearing in the future with
Government officials, with FEMA and Red Cross and some others,
and we look forward to trying to ensure that all of the
innovation that you are creating and the way in which your
companies want to contribute in emergency preparedness, we just
thank you very much.
So thank you. This meeting is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:29 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
EMERGENCY MGMT 2.0: HOW #SOCIALMEDIA & NEW TECH ARE TRANSFORMING
PREPAREDNESS, RESPONSE, & RECOVERY #DISASTERS #PART2 #GOVT/NGOS
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Tuesday, July 9, 2013
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response,
and Communications,
Committee on Homeland Security,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:07 a.m., in
Room 311, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. Susan W. Brooks
[Chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Brooks, Palazzo, and Perry.
Also present: Representative Swalwell.
Mrs. Brooks. The Committee on Homeland Security,
Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and
Communications will come to order.
I would like to welcome our witnesses, everyone in the
audience, and those who are watching this webcast to our second
hearing on how social media and new technology are transforming
disaster preparedness, response, and recovery.
Last month, the subcommittee heard from the private sector
on this topic, and today we will continue our discussion with
the Government and the NGO officials on how they are
incorporating social media and new technologies into their
emergency management efforts.
Before I recognize myself for an opening statement, I ask
unanimous consent that the gentleman from California, Mr.
Swalwell, a member of the full committee, be permitted to sit
on the dais and participate in today's hearing.
So without objection, so ordered.
There is no doubt that social media and new technologies
are playing an increasing role in the way we prepare for,
respond to, and recover from disasters.
As we have seen through recent events, such as Hurricane
Sandy and the Boston bombings, individuals and organizations,
more than ever, are turning to social media and the internet to
obtain public safety information, to connect with friends and
family, and to request, most importantly, assistance from
emergency response organizations.
In fact, in a 2012 survey conducted by the Red Cross, we
learned that 70 percent of respondents suggested that emergency
response agencies should regularly monitor their social media
sites so they can promptly respond to any requests for help.
In addition, an infographic created by the University of
San Francisco, and those are what you are seeing on the
screens, showed that during a disaster, 1 out of 3 citizens
expects help to arrive within 60 minutes of posting a request
on social media.
Social media also enables response organizations to quickly
push information out to the public; something that has not been
possible on such a wide scale until recently. A great example
of this was in the Boston bombings when the first official
announcement that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been captured, it came
not at a traditional press conference like in the past, but
instead, it was tweeted out through the Boston Police
Department.
Also, during the search for the Tsarnaev brothers,
individual citizens were able to tweet and post videos, photos,
and other information to law enforcement officials, which
actually served as a force multiplier and it assisted in the
hunt for the Tsarnaev brothers.
We have also seen similar examples in which response
officials have leveraged information from social media to
enhance the response efforts in such instances as Hurricane
Sandy and the Oklahoma tornadoes.
Two of the most prominent emergency management
organizations are with us today: The American Red Cross and the
Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Earlier this year, I had pleasure to visit both of their
headquarters to learn more about their roles in preparing for,
responding to, and recovering from disasters, and I was
impressed to see how these agencies are incorporating 21st
Century technology into their operations.
It was because of those visits that we had the idea to host
these hearings and to learn more and have them share more with
the American public about what they are doing.
In my visit to the Red Cross, I learned how they partnered
with Dell to develop their Digital Operations Center, which is
the first social-media monitoring platform dedicated
specifically to humanitarian relief.
This center allows the Red Cross to crowdsource information
from affected areas during a disaster, spot trends and better
anticipate the public's needs, and connect people with the
resources they need; food, water, shelter, even emotional
support.
In conjunction with the Digital Operations Center, the Red
Cross has developed what I think more and more agencies and
local and State governments need to consider, and they have
developed a Digital Volunteer Program, on which we will hear
more; it trains digital volunteers from across the country and
even the world, I have learned, as to how to use on-line apps
to respond to questions from the public, distribute critical
public safety information, and provide comfort and reassurance.
During Hurricane Sandy, the digital volunteers played a
critical role in enabling the Red Cross to actively monitor and
verify social media posts around the clock and provide
information to create that situational awareness.
FEMA's Administrator, Craig Fugate, has been a big
supporter of social media as well, and FEMA has been an active
user of Facebook and Twitter to communicate with the public.
I have also heard that FEMA is engaging with private-sector
companies, including Google and Twitter, to determine how best
to take advantage of open data, social media, and the two-way
interaction to enhance their emergency management capabilities.
We are also seeing a rise in the use of social media by
State and local emergency management organizations, and in a
recent survey conducted by the National Emergency Management
Association and CNA on the use of social media, the majority of
State, county, and local agencies reported using some social
media in their disaster preparedness, response, and efforts,
but to varying degrees.
I think a great example of this was--at the local level--
was how Moore and Oklahoma City used their Twitter accounts
during the devastating tornadoes last month. Both cities used
Twitter to relay real-time updates on open shelters, road
closures, lost and found pets, and personal items, and they
also monitored their accounts and responded to requests for
assistance posted by disaster survivors.
Just last week, in my home State in Indiana, I toured MESH
Coalition, which is a public health, non-profit, public-private
partnership, and it is using social media for what they call
infodemiology.
They have dedicated staff monitoring social media as a
disease surveillance tool and they push information to the
hospitals and to the public health departments through Twitter
about what they are seeing.
I had the opportunity to see this operation last week, and
again, I am hopeful that this new use of social media will be
replicated far beyond the Hoosier State.
While I have highlighted some positive developments in the
use of social media and new technology, I do recognize that
there are some challenges.
For example, we must be mindful of how misleading, faulty,
or malicious information or pictures can escalate quickly on
social media sites and potentially negatively affect response
efforts.
In addition, as we have learned from our private-sector
partners in the last hearing, we need to establish common
standards and procedures to help make the sharing of data more
efficient.
Our private-sector witnesses also agreed that there more
could be done in the way of public-/private-sector partnerships
to help maximize the use of social media for disaster purposes
and particularly to leverage big data so that the response and
recovery efforts can be focused on those areas most in need.
I am pleased to welcome our distinguished panel of
witnesses.
[The statement of Chairwoman Brooks follows:]
Statement of Chairwoman Susan W. Brooks
July 9, 2013
There is no doubt that social media and new technologies are
playing an increasing role in the way we prepare for, respond to, and
recover from disasters. As we have seen through recent events, such as
Hurricane Sandy and the Boston bombings, individuals and organizations,
more than ever, are turning to social media and the internet to obtain
public safety information, to connect with friends and family, and to
request assistance from emergency response organizations. In fact, in a
2012 survey conducted by the Red Cross, 70 percent of respondents
suggested that emergency response agencies should regularly monitor
their social media sites so they can promptly respond to any requests
for help. In addition, an Infographic created by the University of San
Francisco showed that during a disaster, 1 out of 3 citizens expects
help to arrive within 60 minutes of posting a request on social
media.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ University of San Francisco website. Accessed on June 20, 2013,
http://onlinempa.usfca.edu/social-media/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Social media also enables response organizations to quickly push
information to the public--something that has not been possible on such
a wide scale until recently. A great example of this was after the
Boston bombings when the first official announcement that Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev had been captured came not at a traditional press conference,
but through a tweet by the Boston Police Department. Also, during the
search for the Tsarnaev brothers, individual citizens were able to
tweet and post videos, photos, and other information to law enforcement
officials, which served as a ``force multiplier'' and assisted in the
hunt.
We have also seen similar examples in which response officials have
leveraged information from social media to enhance response efforts
during recent natural disasters, such as Hurricane Sandy and the
Oklahoma tornadoes.
Two of the most prominent emergency management organizations are
with us today, the American Red Cross and the Federal Emergency
Management Agency. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit
both of their headquarters to learn more about their roles in preparing
for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. I was impressed to
see how they have incorporated 21st-Century technology into their
operations.
During my visit to the Red Cross, I learned how they partnered with
Dell to develop a Digital Operations Center, which is the first social-
media monitoring platform dedicated to humanitarian relief.\2\ This
center allows the Red Cross to crowdsource information from affected
areas during a disaster; spot trends and better anticipate the public's
needs; and connect people with the resources they need, such as food,
water, shelter, or even emotional support.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ American Red Cross website. Accessed on June 20, 2013. http://
www.redcross.org/news/press-release/The-American-Red-Cross-and-Dell-
Launch-First-Of-Its-Kind-Social-Media-Digital-Operations-Center-for-
Humanitarian-Relief.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In conjunction with the Digital Operations Center, the Red Cross
has also developed a Digital Volunteer Program, which trains digital
volunteers from across the country in how to use on-line applications
to respond to questions from the public, distribute critical public
safety information, and provide comfort and reassurance during
emergencies. During Hurricane Sandy, the digital volunteers played a
critical role in enabling the Red Cross to actively monitor and verify
social media posts around the clock and provide information to create
situational awareness.
FEMA's administrator, Craig Fugate, has been a big supporter of
social media as well, and FEMA has been an active user of Facebook and
Twitter to communicate with the public. I've also heard that FEMA is
engaging with private-sector companies, including Google \3\ and
Twitter,\4\ to determine how best to take advantage of open data,
social media, and two-way interaction to enhance their emergency
management capabilities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ FEMA website: Accessed on June 21, 2013, http://www.fema.gov/
medialibrary/media_records/1081.
\4\ FEMA website: Accessed on June 21, 2013, http://www.fema.gov/
medialibrary/media_records/3581.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We are also seeing a rise in the use of social media by State and
local emergency management organizations. In a recent survey conducted
by the National Emergency Management Association and CNA on the use of
social media in the emergency management field, the majority of State,
county, and local agencies reported using social media in their
disaster preparedness and response efforts, but to varying degrees.
I think a good example of the use of social media at the local
level is how the cities of Moore and Oklahoma City used their Twitter
accounts during the devastating tornadoes last month. Both cities used
Twitter to relay real-time updates on open shelters, road closures,
lost and found pets, and personal items. They also actively monitored
their accounts and responded to requests for assistance posted by
disaster survivors.
In my home State of Indiana, MESH Coalition, a public health, non-
profit, public-private partnership is using social media for, what they
call, ``infodemiology.'' They have dedicated staff monitoring social
media as a disease surveillance tool and push information to hospitals
and public health departments through Twitter. I had the opportunity to
see this operation first-hand last week. I am hopeful that this
innovative use of social media and new technology will be replicated
beyond the Hoosier State.
While I have highlighted some positive developments in the use of
social media and new technology, I do realize that there are some
challenges as well. For example, we must be mindful of how misleading,
faulty, or malicious information or pictures can escalate quickly on
social media sites and potentially negatively affect response efforts.
In addition, as we learned from our private-sector partners in the last
hearing, there is a need to establish common standards and procedures
to help make the sharing of data more efficient. Our private-sector
witnesses also agreed that there could be more done in the way of
public-/private-sector partnerships to help maximize the use of social
media for disaster purposes, and to leverage big data so response and
recovery efforts can be focused on those areas most in need.
I am pleased to welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses, and I
look forward to hearing your perspectives on these issues.
Mrs. Brooks. I look forward to hearing your perspectives on
these issues, but I now recognize the gentleman from
California, Mr. Swalwell, for any opening statements he might
have.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, and good morning.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here as well
as Chairman Brooks. I also appreciate the opportunity to be
here and fill in for my colleague, the gentleman from New
Jersey, Donald Payne, who is not here today because he has
business at the White House.
I would first like to begin by extending my sympathies to
those who died or were injured during the plane crash at San
Francisco International Airport on this past Saturday and to
their families, and I would like to thank our first responders,
our police, fire, and emergency personnel, who responded and
mitigated the loss of life in that situation.
This hearing is very timely because at the crash scene, we
saw first-hand the role that social media can play. In fact,
social media was first to provide on-the-ground reports and
photos from the crash scene.
It was actually the first tweet, the first information that
came out was from a former AOL Media and Studios executive,
David Eun from Samsung, who was on the plane and tweeted a
picture, relayed that he and the majority of passengers were
okay. This turned out to be credible information but also kind
of set the tone for what would follow from the ground.
Following what happened, survivors used Twitter, Facebook,
and Path to assure loved ones that they were safe.
San Francisco Airport SFO used social media to provide up-
to-date information on response efforts and the National
Transportation Safety Board did the same with respect to its
investigation.
I, myself, during the moments following the crash and the
investigation used social media like Twitter and Facebook to
both share and learn information, and just yesterday, President
Obama gave remarks at the White House in which he talked about
the administration's effort and desire to encourage Government
to be smarter, more effective, and more efficient through its
use of technology. He cited FEMA's use of web apps in the
aftermath of Sandy.
In this new age of social media and instant communications,
it shouldn't be surprising that they now play such an important
role in the moments following an emergency disaster, and their
use after this plane accident is a reminder of the most recent
example.
Just behind me I have the same infograph that my colleague,
Mrs. Brooks, referred to, provided by the University of San
Francisco, which provides great information on how modern
technology is impacting disaster response.
I do want to highlight that 76 percent of those polled used
social media to let people know that they were okay; 76 percent
of folks who were in a disaster, and 18 percent of those folks
received their information from Facebook.
Much of the social media is developed and produced in
Silicon Valley, and I am proud to represent northern Silicon
Valley in Congress. What Silicon Valley companies like Google,
Facebook, and Twitter are doing to help ordinary citizens
volunteer, share information, and be more prepared for
disasters was discussed at the first hearing in this series
held last month. I applaud them for their efforts.
Today, our focus will be on how Government and our primary
non-Governmental response organization, the Red Cross, use
social media in disaster situations. This will hopefully
include a discussion of both the opportunities and challenges
to using modern technology.
Among our witnesses are Sergeant Kierce, director of the
Jersey City Office of Emergency Management and Homeland
Security. This office has been on the forefront of
interoperable communications and social media and last month
was recognized in Washington, DC, with an International 2013
Computerworld Honors Laureate for implementation of a
remarkable communications surveillance system.
With its internet-based Mutualink, Jersey City OEM can
facilitate communications across various frequencies and types
of communications, provide first-responder users access to
secure video systems, and enable first responders to share
images of disaster and videos with hospitals and public safety
officials.
By integrating both social media and enhanced
communications technologies into emergency response
capabilities, Jersey City will be able to respond to disasters
more quickly and more effectively.
Although cities like Jersey City and San Francisco have
proven particularly adept in integrating new technologies into
its disaster preparedness plans, I understand that not every
city has been just as successful.
To be fair, Jersey City and San Francisco have benefited
from significant grants from Federal homeland security
programs. One of our largest challenges is that as funding for
these programs has been reduced, fewer cities have had the
resources necessary to develop robust communication systems and
to cultivate the expertise necessary to navigate and
effectively integrate social media into disaster response
plans.
The Social Media in the Emergency Management Field, a 2012
survey results study released by the National Emergency
Management Association, also known as NEMA, and the non-profit
research organization, CNA, which my colleague also referred
to, indicates that although local governments consider
themselves moderately familiar with social media, the primary
barrier to emergency management agencies' use of social media
is the lack of dedicated personnel on the ground.
Additionally, there appears to be a generation gap when it
comes to using social media on the part of the public and some
emergency managers. It is hard to use social media to aid in a
disaster response if you cannot spare the personnel to do the
work or you don't have anyone who understands the technology.
In other words, we still have a lot of catching up to do.
Another challenge is that there is undeniably a socio-
economic component with respect to use and access to social
media. Some Americans, particularly those who are low income,
simply don't have the same access to the internet, smartphones,
or Wi-Fi.
We can't ignore the impact of the digital divide as we
begin to integrate social media into disaster response
activities. We can't leave them behind or without information.
Finally, for the Government to best utilize social media,
it is not just about putting information on Twitter and
Facebook, agencies need to be providing data in a usable, open-
source format so the high-technology companies like Google can
easily and quickly incorporate it into their web pages, apps,
and other portals.
I look forward to discussing with our witnesses the
challenges that are ahead highlighting the successes and
looking forward to what we can do to make sure that we are
ready to respond to the next disaster.
Thank you.
[The statement of Mr. Swalwell follows:]
Statement of Hon. Eric Swalwell
July 9, 2013
I'd like to begin by extending my sympathies to those who died or
were injured during the plane crash at San Francisco Airport (SFO) this
weekend and to their families. And, I'd like to thank the EMS teams,
firefighters, and police for their heroic response.
This hearing is very timely, for we just saw in this horrible
accident how critical and relevant social media can be in times of
crisis. Following what happened, survivors used Twitter, Facebook, and
Path to assure loved ones that they were safe. SFO used social media to
provide the public up-to-date information on response efforts and the
National Transportation Safety Board did the same with respect to its
investigation. I myself used social media like Twitter both to share
and learn information.
And, just yesterday, President Obama gave remarks at the White
House in which he talked about his administration's desire to encourage
Government to be smarter, effective, and efficient, through its use of
technology. He cited FEMA's use of the web and apps in the aftermath of
Hurricane Sandy.
In this new age of social media and instant communication, it
shouldn't be surprising that they now play an important role in
disaster response. And, their use after this plane accident is just the
most recent example.
I have an info-graphic on the screen, provided by the University of
San Francisco--located just across the bay from my Congressional
district--which provides great information on how modern technology is
impacting disaster response. For example, 76 percent of those polled
used social media to let people know they are ok. And, 18 percent got
emergency information from Facebook.
Much of this social media is developed and produced in Silicon
Valley, and I'm proud to represent Northern Silicon Valley in Congress.
What Silicon Valley companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter are
doing to help ordinary citizens volunteer, share information, and be
more prepared for disasters was discussed at the first hearing in this
series held last month. I applaud them for their efforts.
Today our focus will be on how Government and our primary non-
Governmental response organization, the Red Cross, use social media in
disaster situations. This will hopefully include a discussion of both
the opportunities and challenges to using this modern technology.
Among our witnesses are Sergeant Kierce, Director of the Jersey
City Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (OEM). This
office has been on the forefront of interoperable communications and
social media. Last month, the office was recognized in Washington, DC
with an international 2013 Computerworld Honors Laureate for
implementation of a remarkable communication and surveillance system.
With its internet-based Mutualink, Jersey City OEM can facilitate
communication across various frequencies and types of communications,
provide first-responder users access to security video systems, and
enable first responders to share images of disaster and videos with
hospitals and other public safety officials. By integrating both social
media and other enhanced communications technologies into its emergency
response capabilities, Jersey City will be able to respond to disasters
more quickly and more effectively.
Although cities like Jersey City and San Francisco have proven
particularly adept in integrating new technologies into its disaster
response plans, I understand that other cities have not been as
successful. To be fair, Jersey City and San Francisco have benefited
from significant grants from Federal homeland security programs.
One of our challenges is that as funding for these programs have
been reduced, fewer cities have had the resources necessary to develop
robust communications systems and to cultivate the expertise necessary
to effectively integrate social media into disaster response plans. The
Social Media in the Emergency Management Field: 2012 Survey Results, a
study released by the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA)
and the nonprofit research organization CNA, indicates that although
local governments consider themselves at least ``moderately familiar''
with social media, the ``primary barrier to emergency management
agencies' use of social media is a lack of dedicated personnel.''
Additionally, there appears to be a generation gap when it comes to
using social media--on the part of the public and some emergency
managers. It's hard to use social media to aid in disaster response if
you can't spare the personnel to do the work, or don't have anyone who
understands the technology.
Another challenge is that there is undeniably a socio-economic
component with respect to use of and access to social media. Some
Americans, particular those who are low-income, simply don't have the
same level of access to the internet, smart phones, or WiFi. We can't
ignore the impact of this ``digital divide'' as we begin to integrate
social media into disaster response activities. We can't leave them
behind, or without needed information.
Finally, for the Government to best utilize social media, it's not
just about it putting information on Twitter and Facebook. Agencies
need to be providing data in a useable, open-source format so the high-
technology companies like Google can easily and quickly incorporate it
to their own web pages, apps, and other portals.
I look forward to discussing with our witnesses both the
opportunities presented by social media and the challenges I laid out,
as well as how we can go about tackling them. Be it more resources, new
statutory authority, or better guidance from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), we should be doing all we can to best harness
the tremendous power of social media in disaster relief and recovery.
The Congress should stand ready to work with the President in this
effort, part of his broader goal to make Government more
technologically savvy.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Other Members of the committee are reminded opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
[The statement of Ranking Member Thompson follows:]
Statement of Ranking Member Bennie G. Thompson
July 9, 2013
Good morning. Thank you Chairwoman Brooks and Ranking Member Payne,
Jr. for holding this hearing today.
Last month, this subcommittee heard testimony from private-sector
witnesses who described the social media and big-data technologies that
emergency managers and first responders can use to improve disaster
response activities.
Google.org and Palantir brought to bear impressive resources during
Hurricane Sandy and the Boston Marathon bombings.
PSE&G--a Newark, New Jersey utility company--described its social
media efforts to keep its customers informed of power restoration
efforts after Hurricane Sandy.
PSE&G's is sharing its best practices and lessons learned with
other utilities and critical infrastructure companies.
From Hurricane Sandy to the tornadoes in Oklahoma, it is clear that
social media is becoming a staple in effective disaster response.
Both the public and Government entities involved in disaster
response have come to rely on social media to supplement and enhance
situational awareness and outreach activities.
This kind of innovation can not only be cost-effective but it can
also saves lives.
That said, we cannot lose sight of social media's inherent
vulnerabilities: The security and accuracy of information shared.
As Jason Payne from Palantir aptly noted during the June 4 hearing,
social media platforms must include ``robust, built-in measures to
allow users appropriate access and to share information . . . while
protecting privacy and civil liberties.''
I look forward to learning about the policies used by FEMA and its
non-Governmental partners to ensure that potentially-sensitive
information gathered to inform disaster response is destroyed when it
is no longer needed.
I also look forward to hearing that this information is used only
for the purpose of disaster response.
Additionally, I am concerned about the circulation of
misinformation during a disaster.
We all know that rumors and unverified information can undermine
legitimate response activities.
I understand that FEMA launched Rumor Control, a website devoted to
correcting misinformation circulated by social media sites, in the
aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
That is a good start.
But I am interested in learning about the guidance FEMA provides to
its State and local Government and private-sector partners about how to
verify information before it is shared.
I am also interested in learning about the type of guidance
provided to help verify open-source information that authorities may
gain from social media.
I look forward to hearing the testimony from our witnesses.
Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. Brooks. We are very pleased to have a very
distinguished panel before us today, and I would like to start
out by introducing Shayne Adamski. He serves as the senior
manager of digital engagement at the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, a position he has held since 2010.
In this capacity, he is responsible for the strategy and
coordination of web, mobile, and social media initiatives
across the agency.
Next up is Ms. Susie DeFrancis. She serves as the chief
public affairs officer at the American Red Cross. She oversees
all communications, Government relations, and strategic
partnerships. Under her leadership, the American Red Cross has
built a 21st Century communications operation concentrating on
the use of social media, other forms of digital engagement, and
building, as I said earlier, the first-ever social media center
for humanitarian purposes.
Next is Mr. Albert Ashwood. He is the director of the
Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, a position he has
held since 1997. He joined the State's emergency management
department in 1988 and he previously served as president of
NEMA, the National Emergency Management Association, and is
testifying on behalf of NEMA.
Finally, I want to thank you, Mr. Swalwell, for introducing
Sergeant Greg Kierce.
So welcome. Thank you very much for coming.
The witnesses' full written statements will appear in the
record.
The Chairwoman will now recognize Mr. Adamski for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF SHAYNE ADAMSKI, SENIOR MANAGER OF DIGITAL
ENGAGEMENT, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Adamski. Chairwoman Brooks, Mr. Swalwell, Members of
the subcommittee, good morning.
I am Shayne Adamski, the senior manager for digital
engagement at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's
Federal Emergency Management Agency.
On behalf of Administrator Fugate and Secretary Napolitano,
thank you for the opportunity to discuss FEMA's use of social
media.
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the role of social
media in disasters and emergencies and fortunate to have
partners with us here today who see the value in using these
tools for public safety.
Millions of Americans use social media every day to check
in on friends and family, learn about current events, and share
their experiences on-line.
FEMA uses social media to be a part of this on-going
dialogue, to meet people where they are, using tools and
platforms they are already familiar with.
With one click of the mouse or one swipe on a smartphone's
screen, a message is capable of being spread to thousands of
people to have a tangible real-world impact, and as such, FEMA
uses social media in numerous ways.
So as we will see on the screens in the next slide, we use
it to provide safety and preparedness tips to inform the public
of the most effective ways to help disaster survivors as well
as to let disaster survivors know where they are able to
receive assistance.
We use social media to provide up-to-date information about
how the emergency management team, including FEMA, is helping
communities and individuals prepare for, respond to, recover
from, and mitigate disasters.
On slide No. 3, we see the onset of the recent Oklahoma
tornados: One of the many messages that we tweeted was
``#Oklahoma. We are working closely with State emergency
management and local officials.'' We stand ready to support as
needed and as requested.
Soon after we followed up with the news that FEMA had it
deployed urban search and rescue, incident management, and
mobile emergency response support teams to Oklahoma.
On slides No. 4 and 5 we will see photos that we posted
after Hurricane Sandy of our FEMA community relations teams who
are now called disaster survivor assistance teams going door-
to-door in the impacted areas helping survivors get help and
apply for aid.
Social media is, at its essence, a conversation, and it is
a conversation that we strive to be an active part of. Of
course in true conversation form, both participants listen and
respond in turn, and social media is no different.
This exchange is a critical component of being viewed as
responsive or authoritative source of information. This two-way
flow of information had an impact after Hurricane Sandy. As we
will see on the next slide, we launched a rumor control
initiative. It was an initiative using all of our on-line
platforms to dispel inaccurate information that was being
shared on-line.
One example also is our disaster recovery center data
feeds--excuse me--so we also regularly collaborate with our
partners, particularly those in the private sector as Mr.
Swalwell here had mentioned, including colleagues who work at
Facebook, Twitter, and Google, so we can better understand how
our messaging can be seen by more users especially during and
after disasters.
One example is our disaster recovery center data feed that
contains information about open disaster recovery centers.
Google regularly includes this data in their crisis maps which
shares helpful information in a familiar and accessible format.
We are also tapping into the importance that cell phones
play in everyday life especially through our smart phone app
and text message program.
In 2011, we released our FEMA smart phone app, which
provides information on how to make a plan, build your
emergency kit, how to stay safe, and how to rebuild after a
disaster.
It also has the ability to look up disaster recovery
centers and open shelters as we see in my final slide.
We are very proud of the fact that the information in the
FEMA app is also accessible even if the user does not have a
cellular or a Wi-Fi connection making it a valuable tool during
a disaster.
In 2011, FEMA was the first agency to establish its own
text message short code meaning that anyone could text 43362 or
4-FEMA to get information on open disaster recovery centers and
open shelters.
During the height of Hurricane Sandy, our text message
program received more than 10,000 requests in 1 day from people
searching for shelter locations within a specific ZIP Code.
Citizens can also sign up to receive regular preparedness
tips regarding the hazards that are most common in their area
such as earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, as well as
tornadoes.
Moving forward, FEMA will continue to engage in on-line
conversations that lead to a more prepared and better informed
public. We are constantly refining our digital and social media
approach, listening to feedback from our stakeholders, and
keeping our ear to the ground on the ever-evolving world of
social media and the digital space.
We learn from the conversations we have on these platforms
and from continued collaboration with our partners. We do all
of this to achieve our core mission of supporting America's
citizens.
I look forward to addressing any questions the subcommittee
may have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Adamski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Shayne Adamski
July 9, 2013
introduction
Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and Members of the
subcommittee: Good morning. I am Shayne Adamski, senior manager of
digital engagement for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS)
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). On behalf of Administrator
Fugate and Secretary Napolitano, thank you for the opportunity to
discuss FEMA's use of social media.
I am pleased to be here today to discuss the role of social media
in disasters and emergencies. Technology grows and changes rapidly,
providing us with increased opportunities to educate and empower the
public. Tools that did not exist even 5 years ago are now primary modes
of communication for millions of Americans. Of course, tools such as
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were not created for the purpose of
preparing for, responding to, or recovering from emergencies and
disasters. However, the potential for useful application of these tools
to strengthen the effectiveness of the FEMA mission exists and should
be explored.
FEMA's success in fulfilling its mission is highly dependent upon
our ability to communicate with the individuals, families, and
communities we serve. For that reason, social media conversations are
extremely valuable to the work we do, and we are fortunate to have
partners with us here today who see the value of using these tools to
increase public safety.
Today, I would like to discuss why social media is important to the
work we do as well as how FEMA uses social media and strategic
partnerships to fulfill our mission.
the power and promise of social media in emergency management
FEMA's approach to emergency management recognizes that
individuals, families, and communities are our greatest assets and the
keys to our success. In order to fulfill our mission, we must work
together as one team--this notion is at the heart of our whole-
community approach to emergency management.
Social media is imperative to emergency management because the
public uses these communication tools regularly. Rather than trying to
convince the public to adjust to the way we at FEMA traditionally
communicated, we have adapted to the way the public communicates,
leveraging the tools they use on a daily basis. Millions of Americans
use social media every day to check in on friends and family, learn
about current events, and share their experiences. FEMA uses social
media to be part of this on-going dialogue and meet people where they
are, using tools and platforms they are already familiar with.
FEMA also uses social media and other digital methods to
communicate because as we have seen, information can lead to action.
Our goal is for our safety-related information to have a real-world
impact--to inspire actions that lead to more resilient families and
communities. If someone sees a preparedness or safety tip from FEMA,
the goal is that it will inspire them to prepare or empower them to
tell a friend how to be more prepared or where to find help.
Finally, social media and technology allow us to reach more people
more quickly during disasters, when they need accurate, timely, and
authoritative information that helps ensure the protection of their
life or livelihood. With one click of the mouse, or one swipe on their
smartphone's screen, a message is capable of being spread to thousands
of people and have a tangible impact.
how fema uses social media
FEMA uses multiple social media platforms to reach the public and
to provide them with useful information. While no individual social
media tool is exhaustive or all-encompassing, each allows us to
communicate with the populations we serve. I would like to discuss a
few of the social media tools we use at FEMA, and how we use them.
We are very active on two of the most popular social networks in
America--Facebook and Twitter--where we are able to reach the greatest
number of active, engaged users. We have three Facebook pages and 34
Twitter accounts. Collectively, our Twitter accounts have 400,000
followers, while our Facebook pages have 143,000 fans. FEMA also
manages a YouTube channel as well as discussions on an on-line
collaboration site called IdeaScale.
These numbers also show our growth and demonstrate our increasing
ability to communicate with Americans on-line. When I started in my
position in June 2010, we had 25,000 followers on all of our social
media accounts combined. Today, FEMA has well over 500,000 users on
these sites.
FEMA uses social media in five primary ways.
First, we use social media to provide up-to-date information about
how the whole community emergency management team, including FEMA, is
helping communities and individuals prepare for, respond to, and
recover from and mitigate disasters.
At the onset of the recent Oklahoma tornadoes, one of the many
messages that we tweeted was: ``#Oklahoma: We're working closely with
state emergency management & local officials. We stand ready to support
as needed & requested.'' Soon after, we followed up with the news that
FEMA had deployed Urban Search & Rescue, Incident Management, and
Mobile Emergency Response Support teams to Oklahoma.
And just after Hurricane Sandy we posted photos of our FEMA Corps
Community Relations (now called Disaster Survivor Assistance Teams)
personnel going door-to-door in the impacted areas, helping survivors
get help and apply for aid in New Jersey and New York.
We also leverage our social media accounts to help our Federal,
State, local, Tribal, territorial, and private-sector partners share
key messages. For example, we shared many status updates from trusted
sources before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy, including from
Governor Chris Christie, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and other Governors
and mayors throughout the affected region.
Following the Oklahoma tornadoes in May, we amplified key messages
from the Oklahoma State government and the city of Moore. We regularly
share updates from our partners at all levels because we recognize that
successful emergency management requires a whole-community approach and
effort.
Second, we use social media to provide safety and preparedness
tips. As the subcommittee is aware, we are currently in the middle of
the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, so we recently posted tips
regarding properly securing windows during a hurricane. Similar
messages are posted regularly across all of our social media accounts
to help ensure that Americans have actionable, specific ways to get
themselves, their families, their business, and their communities
better prepared for disasters.
These safety tips focus on more than just preparedness. We also
share information about how people are able to stay safe during and
after disasters with critical reminders to stay away from damaged areas
and allow emergency crews and rescue workers to work.
Third, we use social media to inform the public of the most
effective ways to help disaster survivors. Americans show tremendous
generosity after disasters, so we provide tips on how that generosity
could be most effective. For example, we encourage Americans to donate
through trusted charities that know the specific needs of the impacted
community.
Fourth, we tell disaster survivors where and how they are able to
receive assistance--whether that be from FEMA or from another trusted
source. To accomplish this, we leverage all of our social media
accounts, including those managed in each of FEMA's regional offices.
Our regional offices fill an important niche, providing useful
information to local users, such as locations of FEMA's Disaster
Recovery Centers or by highlighting local resources. We employed this
tactic after Hurricane Sandy and during both the recent floods in
Illinois and the tornadoes in Oklahoma.
Fifth, we tap into the potential of social media to gain valuable
feedback. As I shared before, social media is at its essence a
conversation and it is a conversation that we strive to be an active
part of. Of course, in true conversation, both participants listen and
respond in turn--social media is no different. This exchange is a
critical component of being viewed as a responsive, authoritative
source of information.
This two-way flow of information had an impact after Hurricane
Sandy. In the days following the hurricane, FEMA launched ``Rumor
Control,'' an initiative using all of our on-line platforms to dispel
inaccurate information being shared on-line. We listened and identified
rumors circulating on-line, from logistics information to specific
disaster assistance programs, and moved to quickly correct the
misinformation. This was done by creating a Rumor Control page on
fema.gov and m.fema.gov (FEMA's mobile website), as well as through
answering many questions received through our Facebook and Twitter
accounts. FEMA receives questions almost daily on Facebook and Twitter,
so we dedicate resources to answering them, thus helping to fulfill
FEMA's mission of supporting America's citizens.
To further facilitate feedback and interaction from the on-line
community, FEMA also holds the equivalent of ``virtual town halls''
using Twitter chats. Twitter chats are real-time conversations using
the platform. One recent example came after Hurricane Sandy. Federal
Coordinating Officer for New York, Mike Byrne, participated in a
Twitter chat and fielded many questions, such as ``How do homeowners
get the amounts they need to rebuild?'' and ``Has @Fema spread into
affected communities, holding open houses and is it better coordinated
w/other agencies than 1 mo ago?''. These on-line ``town halls'' allow
FEMA to answer questions in an open, public forum and contribute to
growing our on-line following, which is essential to educating a
greater number of Americans.
As we use social and digital media, we follow record management and
Paperwork Reduction Act rules. It is also important to note that FEMA
writes content explicitly so that it is does not trigger the
stipulations of the Paperwork Reduction Act and archives all social
media content/conversations for records management purposes.
collaborating with key partners
In addition to sharing key messages on our social networks from our
partners, social media also allows FEMA to work with partners, such as
the American Red Cross, to share information about the nature of on-
line conversations after a disaster.
We also share what our private-sector partners are doing during a
disaster, such as posting information about Tide Loads of Hope
locations, where survivors can wash their clothes and Therapy Dogs
International, which provides specially-trained dogs to comfort
survivors.
Additionally, we collaborate with our partners across the emergency
management team on messaging and outreach for preparedness campaigns
such as September's annual National Preparedness Month.
To fully collaborate with our partners, particularly those in the
private sector, we also make some types of information available for
their use. One example is our Disaster Recovery Center data feed that
contains information about open Disaster Recovery Centers. Google
regularly includes this data in their Crisis Maps, which shares helpful
information in a familiar and accessible format.
We also regularly collaborate with our colleagues who work for
platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to better understand how
our messaging could be seen by more users, especially during and after
disasters.
FEMA looks forward to making these non-profit and private-sector
relationships even stronger in the future.
social media: part of fema's larger digital presence
FEMA's digital presence extends beyond social media. FEMA also
communicates with Americans via the web and various mobile platforms.
These channels complement each other and allow us to reach a larger
audience.
FEMA runs several websites that serve as authoritative sources for
information, including: fema.gov, ready.gov, and
disasterasssitance.gov.
FEMA is also tapping into the importance that cell phones play in
everyday life, specifically through our smartphone app, text message
program, and Wireless Emergency Alerts. In my experience, cell phones
are often a lifeline after a disaster and many times are the only
source of information in the hardest-affected areas. As citizens
continue to use smartphones more and more, those of us in emergency
management should continually be looking for ways to share our message
and make our services available through those devices.
In 2011, we also released our FEMA smartphone app, which provides
information on how to: Make a plan and build your emergency kit; stay
safe and rebuild after a disaster; and look up open disaster recovery
centers and open shelters. We are very proud of the fact that the
safety information in the FEMA app is accessible within the app even if
the user does not have a cellular or Wi-Fi connection--making it a
valuable tool during a disaster.
Text messaging is a form of communication that is particularly
useful during and after a disaster when phone lines may be congested
and voice calls often do not get through. Sending and receiving text
messages requires less bandwidth and helps reduce the volume of phone
calls in an area so that necessary communications are able to continue
to be made.
After the May 20 tornadoes in Oklahoma, we posted a message to
Facebook that reminded people to use text messaging to check in with
friends/family in the impacted area, as well as the American Red Cross
Safe and Well site. The message was seen by more than 230,000 people on
Facebook.
In 2011, FEMA was the first Federal agency to establish its own
text message short code--meaning that anyone could text 43362 or 4FEMA
to obtain valuable information. Texting this code allows people to
search for open disaster recovery centers and shelters. During the
height of Hurricane Sandy, our text message program received more than
10,000 requests in one day from people searching for shelter locations
within a specific ZIP code. Citizens could also sign up to receive
regular preparedness tips regarding the hazards that are most common in
their area, such as earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes, or tornadoes.
Local and State public safety officials can send Wireless Emergency
Alerts directly to citizen's cell phones, utilizing FEMA's Integrated
Public Alert & Warning System. These geographically-targeted messages
are sent from emergency managers, the National Weather Service, and the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to warn citizens
about severe weather, AMBER Alerts and other threats to safety. During
National emergencies, the President can also communicate with citizens
using Wireless Emergency Alerts.
personal preparedness meets digital
At FEMA, we often share how Americans could use technology to be
``digitally prepared,'' and I would also like to take this opportunity
to share some of those items today.
To ensure they are prepared, we encourage people to take these
steps:
Store useful phone numbers in their phone, including numbers
for local police, fire departments, and their utility company;
Create a group of emergency contacts in their cell phone;
Educate themselves on what social media tools are being used
by their State, local, Tribal, and territorial emergency
management offices, so that they are able to quickly access
them in the event of an emergency;
Have an extra battery for their phone (or a solar charger)
in their emergency kit;
Update their social media channels in the aftermath of a
disaster to let their friends and family know they are safe by
simply texting ``I'm OK''; and
Know how to use text messaging to check in with friends and
family after a disaster.
Many social media sites also allow users to update their status via
text message, and I would encourage the public to become familiar with
how to do so.
moving forward
Moving forward, FEMA will continue to engage in on-line
conversations that lead to a more prepared, better-informed public.
We are constantly refining our social media approach, listening to
feedback from our stakeholders and keeping our ear to the ground on the
ever-evolving world of social media and the digital space. We also
learn from the conversations we have on these platforms and from
continued collaboration with our partners. We do all of this to achieve
our core mission of supporting America's citizens.
I look forward to addressing any questions the subcommittee may
have.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Adamski.
The Chairwoman now recognizes Ms. DeFrancis for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF SUZANNE C. DE FRANCIS, CHIEF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
OFFICER, AMERICAN RED CROSS
Ms. DeFrancis. Thank you, Chairwoman Brooks and Members of
the committee.
The American Red Cross appreciates this opportunity to
share our experiences using social media to help people stay
safe and recover from disasters, and we also look forward to
learning from our Federal, State, and local partners here
today.
So today, I would like to make three points.
The public is increasingly turning to social media and
mobile apps to get help and to give help during disasters, and
all of us must be listening and responding and integrating that
information better into our response operations because, as you
mentioned, the public has very high expectations that we are
doing that.
At the American Red Cross, social media plays an important
role now in what is a 130-year-old mission. It is helping us
provide critical information to the public, connect people to
resources, and literally, save lives.
Finally, social media is a powerful form of citizen
engagement which can be harnessed to create more resilient
communities so that the community can actually own the disaster
response and this will help ensure our Nation is as prepared as
possible.
So as you mentioned, Chairwoman, that the American Red
Cross surveys show people use social media for many reasons.
Three out of four use it to find their friends and family and
see if they are safe or to give information about their own
safety.
They are also looking for hard facts. They want the weather
conditions, road closures, damage reports. We saw during Sandy,
they were looking for gas stations that had gas.
More than a third say social media has motivated them to
gather supplies or seek shelter. As you know, it is very hard
to convince people to prepare, but social media is making a
dent in that.
As you said, the public expects us to be listening and
responding. Three out of four Americans expect help in less
than 3 hours to arrive after a post on social media, and
clearly, we know we have a gap there in meeting that
expectation.
So the hub of Red Cross social media is our digital
operation centers, opened in March 2012 but with a generous
gift from our wonderful partner, Dell, and as you said, it is
the first social media center specifically devoted to
humanitarian relief.
We were so pleased that you were able to come and visit our
center along with Ranking Member Payne and we hope that other
Members of the committee will come, other Members of Congress,
we welcome and want to show you our facilities.
So this center allows us to pull data from social networks,
all social networks, and categorize them by topics. So it could
be a topic such as damages, emotional support, need for
shelter, food, and then we can categorize that and then read,
reply, or take the data and redirect it to inquiries to our
disaster operations staff so they can get on it.
During Hurricane Sandy, we analyzed more than 2.5 million
pieces of social data. We were searching for any actionable
content. We tagged 10,000 of these posts and whether it was
labeling it situational awareness or something that needed to
go to our mass care operations.
We sent more than 300 individual pieces of information to
our operations team on the ground and about 88 of those
resulted in concrete actions where we actually took a step we
weren't planning on taking to get people help.
We tweeted and posted information on where our shelters and
mobile feeding sites. I used to love to see our New York
chapter send out a tweet that would say, ``The Red Cross truck
is at 99th and 101st streets in Howard Beach, and we are
serving Salisbury steak today.''
Social media also helped us identify gaps in our service
delivery. When residents of Sayreville, New Jersey had not
received assistance 5 days after landfall, they used Facebook
to let us know, and we were able to route this information to
our operation on the ground to get some service delivery going
in an area we just hadn't identified.
Now you know the Red Cross relies on volunteers and so the
way that we are able to scale up our social media operations
during a disaster is through trained digital volunteers.
During Sandy, more than 50 American Red Cross digital
volunteers, some working remotely from around the world like
Christoph Dennenmoser, from our German Red Cross, were actually
responding to thousands of Facebook messages and tweets about
Sandy.
Now social media apps and other digital tools are an
increasing part of 21st Century response but these tools, I
need to hasten to add, are not a panacea. Social media can
supplement but does not replace traditional communications.
Not everyone, as you mentioned, is on social media. There
is a digital divide, and when the power is out and people can't
charge the cell phones, nobody is on social media, and the Red
Cross will still drive through neighborhoods with bull horns
announcing that we are there with food, water, and other
supplies.
Now our surveys have also found that mobile apps are
increasingly becoming important. They are the fourth most
popular way to get information in an emergency and remember TV,
radio, and on-line news are still the top sources of
information.
The American Red Cross has released a series of five free
apps for both iPhone and Android. People have downloaded these
new apps 3 million times. They have weather alerts,
preparedness information, shelter locations, and the ability to
let loved ones know they are safe.
A top Apple executive told our CEO, Gail McGovern, that he
never leaves his kids without leaving our first aid app open
for the babysitter to use.
People have told us that they have literally saved lives in
a restaurant using the app because it tells you how to stop
people from choking, what to do in terms of cardiac arrest.
Our tornado apps and other apps that we have are now
tapping into the Government systems so that we can send an
alarm that sounds when a tornado is approaching. We got a
message from some mother who said, ``Now I can go to sleep
because I know this alarm wakes me up.''
Finally, in catastrophic disasters, the Red Cross witnesses
an abundance of care and concern from people who are
unaffected, people who just really want to help their
neighbors. They are often eyewitnesses to the events as you
described with the plane crash and the first to help their
neighbors.
We are seeing the possibilities here as limitless in terms
of giving the public a seat at our disaster operations table
and have them help control the response if you will.
So by social media and mobile apps and new technology, we
can create more resilient communities, more effective disaster
response, and a more prepared Nation.
Thank you again for your leadership on this topic,
Chairman, and I am happy to address any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. DeFrancis follows:]
Prepared Statement of Suzanne C. DeFrancis
July 9, 2013
Good morning, Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, Members and
staff of the subcommittee. The American Red Cross appreciates the
opportunity to share our experience using social media and new
technology to help people stay safe and recover from disasters and
other emergencies. Chairman Brooks, we applaud the personal interest
you and the Ranking Member have in this area, as evidenced by your
visit earlier this year to our Digital Operations Center, and we look
forward to further engagement with you and the entire committee.
The destructive disasters we have seen across our country--from
wildfires in the West, to the Oklahoma tornadoes, Superstorm Sandy,
which impacted Ranking Member Payne's State of New Jersey and, the
outbreak of tornadoes that devastated Henryville in Chairman Brooks'
home State of Indiana--underscore the fact that disasters can strike
anywhere at any time, and we all use all the tools and methods we can
to help our neighbors in need.
Today, I'd like to make three points to the committee:
1. The public is increasingly turning to social media, mobile apps,
and other new technology to find information and get help
during disasters, and all of us who provide emergency relief
must be listening and responding.
2. The American Red Cross works to continually improve our
services, and social media is an important tool in helping us
share life-saving information, connect people to resources and
literally save lives.
3. Social media is a powerful form of citizen engagement which can
be harnessed to create more resilient communities and ensure
our Nation is as prepared as posssible.
emerging social media and new technology trends
The power of social media as a communications tool during disasters
became clear to us in the aftermath of the earthquake that struck Haiti
in 2010. The American Red Cross saw tweets from people trapped under
collapsed buildings. We heard directly from members of the Haitian
diaspora who were communicating via text with loved ones in need of
help. With cell service down in the early hours, people sought help
however they could.
Like many other disaster relief organizations and emergency
responders at the time, the American Red Cross did not have an
efficient way to process and respond to this information. We had to
manually intake the messages and try to route them to the right places.
It was a sign to us that technology was rapidly-changing traditional
disaster response methods.
In August 2010, the American Red Cross convened an Emergency Social
Data Summit to discuss the evolution occurring in disaster response
with the use and reliance by the public on social media. We convened
other emergency response and disaster relief agencies, as well as the
social media entities that were part of this growing phenomenon. This
was the first time that Government, nonprofit, technology, and citizen
sectors came together to discuss the opportunities and challenges we
face in integrating social data with disaster response.
More than 150 people attended the all-day summit and another 1,200
contributed virtually to the conference via Ustream and Twitter. It was
quite a sight to see people live-blogging and tweeting in the same Red
Cross headquarters building where citizens had once rolled bandages
during World War I.
surveys of web users
To inform the summit discussion, the American Red Cross conducted a
survey of web users. Our survey results showed that many web users
would turn to social communities to seek help during disasters and
other emergencies. And, even more importantly, they expected first
responders to be listening.
The 2010 survey also found that Americans have high expectations
about how first responders should be answering their requests, and it
revealed a gap between public expectations and our ability to meet
those expectations. For example, 69 percent said that emergency
responders should be monitoring social media sites in order to quickly
send help--and 74 percent expected help to come less than an hour after
their tweet or Facebook post.
In 2011 and 2012, the Red Cross conducted follow-up surveys on use
of social media in emergencies. Those surveys found that Americans are
becoming increasingly reliant on mobile devices during emergencies to
provide information, useful tools, and a way to let loved ones know
they are safe.
The Red Cross surveys found that mobile apps now tie social media
as the fourth most popular way to get information in an emergency,
following TV, radio, and on-line news. The Red Cross survey found that
20 percent of Americans said they have received some kind of emergency
information from an app. These findings led to the development of a
series of Red Cross apps that I will discuss later.
The survey identified a subsection of the population deemed
``emergency social users,'' people who are the most dedicated users of
social media during emergencies and likely to take action based on
information gathered through their social networks.
Three out of four emergency social users say they have
contacted friends and family to see if they were safe.
More than a third say social information has motivated them
to gather supplies or seek shelter.
These users look for the hard facts--road closures, damage
reports, and weather conditions--and they share personal
information about their safety and their emotions.
Three out of four Americans (76 percent) expect help in less
than 3 hours of posting a request on social media, up from 68
percent in the 2011 survey.
Forty percent of those surveyed in 2012 said they would use
social tools to tell others they are safe, up from 24 percent
the year before.
using social media to advance the red cross mission
For more than 130 years, the mission of the American Red Cross has
been to help prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of
emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of
donors.
We respond to nearly 70,000 disasters each year--ranging from a
house fire to a hurricane. We supply about 40 percent of the Nation's
blood to patients and hospitals. We teach skills such as First Aid and
CPR that can save lives. We provide international humanitarian aid and
support our military and their families through emergency
communications and other programs.
It may seem incongruous to some for an institution as old as ours
to be embracing social media. But our experience teaches us that during
a crisis, people will communicate the same way they communicate every
day. Today, people are depending upon social media to communicate with
their family and friends on a daily basis. And, as our surveys show,
they are increasingly using social media to communicate in a disaster.
To that end, the Red Cross has made social media and other forms of
new technology a priority and our social presence continues to grow. We
are present on all the major digital platforms. We have over half a
million Facebook followers and we just celebrated our one millionth
Twitter follower.
digital operations center
The hub of our social media engagement is our Digital Operations
Center at our Washington, DC, headquarters, which opened on March 7,
2012. It is the first social media monitoring center specifically
devoted to humanitarian relief efforts.
This center was made possible by our generous partner, DELL, which
built the center for us and provided the equipment and its expertise.
This revolutionary center enables the Red Cross to clearly see what is
happening on the ground during an emergency. It helps us to better
anticipate disaster needs and to dispense help more quickly--whether it
is in the form of preparedness tips, first aid instructions, and
information about shelter, food, or other services.
The center allows us to pull in data from social networks on topics
we choose. It consists of an engagement console which allows us to
categorize posts by topic, and read, reply to them, or redirect
inquiries to our disaster operations staff or other appropriate
subject-matter experts.
There are four screens which visually depict this information so we
can easily monitor it:
The Heat Map tells us WHERE posts are coming from
geographically;
The Community Screen tells us WHO is posting;
The Universe Screen tells us WHAT they are saying;
The Conversation Dashboard tells us HOW we are doing in our
response efforts.
The American Red Cross is very proud of our Digital Operations
Center. And, we love to show it off. I invite all Members of Congress
and their staff to visit our cutting-edge communication center to learn
more about its capabilities and witness it in action.
putting emergency social data to work
Chairman Brooks, as you will recall, on March 2, 2012, an early
season tornado outbreak devastated many communities in Kentucky and
southern Indiana with more than 30 deaths and 300 injured. This
disaster actually served as our first-ever test of the Digital
Operations Center. Our small team of social media experts watched the
heat map go red as the Indiana storms struck. Based on the activity and
content of social media in the area, the team was able to determine
that the tornadoes were heading right toward Henryville and quickly
distribute preparedness information to thousands of people by offering
links to Redcross.org and safety tips in 140 characters. We also were
able to make operational decisions based on feedback and connect those
on the ground with the resources they needed.
Last October, when Superstorm Sandy struck, the American Red Cross
launched the largest U.S. disaster response in more than 5 years. Our
Digital Operations Center again played a crucial role.
Starting prior to landfall and continuing well after the storm
passed, our teams in the Digital Operations Center analyzed more than
2.5 million pieces of social data searching for any actionable content
from people affected by Sandy. They tagged 10,000 of these posts and
interacted with them in some way, whether it was labeling a post as
``situational awareness'' or routing a need to our Mass Care
operations.
The social team sent more than 300 individual pieces of information
to our operations team to help inform their decision making. This level
of engagement allowed us to immediately address the needs and concerns
of a large number of people in a densely-populated region of the
country.
We also were able to scale up our social media operations through
the use of trained digital volunteers. They helped us monitor,
authenticate, and route incoming disaster requests and information to
our operations people and partners. They worked remotely using hash
tags such as #crisisdata or #redcross to collect, collate, and respond
to queries and concerns.
During Sandy, more than 50 American Red Cross digital volunteers--
some working virtually from around the world--responded to thousands of
Facebook messages and tweets. They addressed an array of service
delivery needs from finding the nearest shelter to answering questions
about fallen trees and downed power lines. One of our Digital
Volunteers was Christoph Dennenmoser, who works for the German Red
Cross and has helped us respond to social posts on operations such as
Haiti and Hurricane Sandy . . . all from his home or office in Germany.
Our social engagement team, chapters, and digital volunteers
offered information on where to find our shelters and mobile feeding
sites. For example, our New York City chapter would tweet out that a
Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicle would be at 99th and 101st streets
in Howard Beach with hot meals and water. Some even tweeted out the
menu for the day: Salisbury steak.
The Red Cross found during Sandy that social media also helps us
identify gaps in our service delivery. For example, residents of
Sayreville, NJ had not received assistance 5 days after Sandy's
landfall. Several people there used Facebook to let us know, and we
were able to provide this information from our Digital Operations
Center to the operation on the ground and get service delivery going in
that hard-hit area we hadn't identified before.
We have found one major need remains consistent during all
disasters--people are anxious and need emotional support. This gives us
an opportunity to provide comfort and care using our ``digital hugs,''
delivered in 140 characters or less.
For example, we received a tweet saying: OK #Sandy, you win. It's
official. I'm scared.
We replied back: Sorry you are scared, pay attn to warnings and
find shelter nearby just in case. Redcross.org (hugs) to you!
The answer: Thank you. Stay safe as well. Thanks for the hugs . . .
I need it.
The Red Cross continues to learn from all of our response efforts
as social media evolves. There is a balance between acting on
information shared through social media outlets and ensuring what has
transpired is accurate and correct. By watching and tracking social
media continually, we often can correct misinformation quickly as we
authenticate and verify information.
mobile apps playing larger role in disasters and saving lives
As smart phones increasingly play a larger role in our lives, the
American Red Cross is responding to this change with mobile solutions.
Since June, 2012, we have released a series of five free apps for both
iPhone and Android users.
People across the country have downloaded these new apps more than
3 million times, giving them vital weather alerts, preparedness
information, shelter locations, and the ability to let loved ones know
they are safe.
The First Aid app, which was launched in June, 2012, is the most
popular and has been downloaded more than 1.4 million times. A top
executive at Apple told our CEO Gail McGovern that he never goes out
for the evening without leaving the app open for the babysitter.
The First Aid App was followed by four more disaster apps:
Hurricane, earthquake, wildfire, and tornado. Popular with users, they
receive average ratings of 4.5 out of 5.0 stars and received the ``Best
in Show--Most Life Changing Product'' award at the recent CTIA--The
Wireless Association Conference.
CNN has called our Tornado App one of the ``7 apps to survive a
tornado.'' It includes a siren that warns users when a tornado warning
has been issued in their area. When the deadly tornadoes struck
Oklahoma in May, our Tornado App was the number one free weather app
and had 167,000 new downloads, bringing the total to 594,000 downloads
since its March launch.
The Red Cross hurricane app, which has been downloaded more than
824,000 times, became the No. 1 free weather app during Sandy and
received the ``Outstanding Achievement'' award at this year's National
Hurricane Conference.
But most gratifying is the feedback from users about how our apps
helped save lives:
``I was in my friends car . . . when suddenly a friend of mine started
having a seizure. I immediately looked at this app for help while
calling 9-1-1 on another phone. I told the police about it and they
said that there's a good chance the information in this app saved my
friends life.''
``I never have to stay up night again worried a tornado is coming when
there's a watch. I have a 9-month-old. I'm terrified one will come and
I won't have enough time to get her room & downstairs. I've had apps
before that don't work every time. This 1 actually does.''
on-line tools are a supplement, not substitute for traditional
communications
Social media, apps, and other digital tools are becoming an
increasingly important part of 21st Century disaster response and
services. But it would be a mistake to assume that these tools are a
panacea. Social media should supplement but not replace traditional
communications. Not everyone is on social media, especially in
vulnerable communities. And those who do use social media tend to be
younger, more urban, and more affluent.
Moreover, when power is out and you can't charge your smart phone,
you will still need the Red Cross to drive through neighborhoods with
bullhorns announcing that we are there with food, water, and other
supplies.
During Hurricane Sandy, the American Red Cross delivered help that
cannot be delivered over the internet, as we:
Mobilized more than 17,000 workers and volunteers;
Provided more than 81,000 overnight stays in shelters;
Served more than 17 million meals and snacks;
Distributed more than 7 million relief items.
partnering to extend reach of social media/new technology
Social media and mobile technologies are bringing everyone closer
together, and when Government, non-profits, internet, and other private
companies, work together we can reach even more people with life-saving
information and help.
We can do this by sharing updates and information, and spreading
the word through our own networks, while still preserving what is
unique about our brands and the services we provide.
For example, in the first hours after a disaster strikes, it's
important to inform and connect with family and friends. What better
place to do that than on social media. The Red Cross has made changes
to its Safe and Well website that allows people to update their status
on Facebook and Twitter. We have also added an ``I'm Safe'' button to
our apps that allows people to immediately send a text message, tweet,
or Facebook post to let loved ones know they are safe.
We have a very close working relationship with FEMA and State and
local emergency management, often sharing information with each other
through social media.
During major disasters, the Red Cross social engagement team has a
daily check-in with the FEMA social engagement team. We frequently echo
and/or share one another's outgoing content--for example FEMA will
often help us push out Safe and Well to the public.
We share situational awareness to be sure we're coming to similar
conclusions about client needs, and we are working to integrate our
findings with the work of State emergency operations centers.
a new form of citizen engagement
In catastrophic disasters, the Red Cross witnesses an abundance of
care and concern from the unaffected--people eagerly wanting to help.
They are often eyewitnesses to the events, and the first to help their
neighbors.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate often speaks of his goal to have
people see themselves as survivors and not victims of a disaster. He
has pointed out that social media can empower the public to be a part
of the response, not victims to be taken care of. We agree.
In just a few weeks, we are set to launch the new, dynamic Team Red
Cross app. This new app allows people to sign up to help, get trained
right on their mobile device and receive notifications about Red Cross
volunteer opportunities in their community.
We are very excited about this next level of digital engagement
with the American people.
With the help of technology, we are able to offer limitless
opportunities, thereby, turning an abundance of care into more
resilient communities, more effective disaster response, and a more
prepared Nation.
the next technological horizon
Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and Members of the
subcommittee, thank you again for this opportunity to provide testimony
today. We are delighted to be working with this subcommittee and your
colleagues as we further explore the opportunities presented by
engaging social media in our disaster preparedness and response.
Social media is helping us improve our service delivery by giving
us better situational awareness of the needs, helping us target help to
specific locations, and getting more people engaged in giving and
getting help. It is giving the public a seat at our Disaster Operations
table.
We have learned on this recent journey that we must continue to
embrace change, remain open to new ideas and new platforms, and look
forward to the next technological horizon.
Thank you again for your engagement and leadership on this
important topic. I am happy to address any questions you may have.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Ms. DeFrancis.
The Chairwoman now recognizes Mr. Ashwood for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ALBERT ASHWOOD, DIRECTOR, OKLAHOMA DEPARTMENT OF
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
Mr. Ashwood. Chairwoman Brooks, Congressman Swalwell,
Members of the committee, thank you again for holding the
hearing today on growing issue to the emergency management
community.
Today I am pleased to be representing the National
Emergency Management Association as legislative committee
chairman and past president of the association. I am also the
director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management.
As you know, in May of this year, my State suffered a
series of severe weather events including two EF5 tornadoes.
These storms developed in and around Oklahoma City within 11
days of each other.
The EF5 is the most damaging classification of tornadoes
with the wind speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. It is so
rare that the National Weather Service has only documented 60
since 1950. So to experience 2 within 11 days is extremely
rare.
Our job in emergency management, as is true with the entire
public sector, is one of customer service. Part of our mission
is accomplished by helping our customers respond to and recover
from extreme events such as these.
As the first tornado landed, we maintained contact with our
Federal partners to not only meet the needs of response but to
establish recovery efforts. Urban search and rescue teams were
mobilized as Governor Fallin made a verbal request for Major
Disaster Declaration.
Later that evening, the President approved the request and
we were well on our way of turning disaster victims into
disaster survivors.
Today we have nearly 14,000 families registered for
assistance and roughly $45 million disbursed for rental
assistance, repair, low interest loans, and grants. I cannot
thank FEMA enough for the continued support and Congress'
continued support of the emergency management profession.
Now, to the topic we are here for--social media and
disasters.
Communications with the public is always a great challenge
following events of this magnitude and social media is no doubt
the new tool of messaging.
Once we were able to gain our footing following the
immediate response, social media gave us situational awareness
on the ground. We were able to confirm damage reports and
assessments through photos and messaging from the general
public. Between June 10 and June 23, we received 105 retweets
and nearly 250,000 impressions on Twitter as well as constant
activity on Facebook.
As the storms continued, the likes on our Facebook page
increased from 200 to over 8,000 in a little less than a month.
The emergency management community has recognized in the power
of social media and its continuous evolution.
Last year, NEMA joined with the Center for Naval Analysis
to conduct a survey on how emergency managers use social media.
We outlined numerous issues including both the strengths and
limitations which I have outlined in detail in my statement for
the record.
State public information officers are currently utilizing
these findings and addressing them through their work groups.
Their charge is to create a template of standard operating
procedures and concepts for virtual operation support teams
that will give us a surge capacity through volunteer manpower.
These efforts will continue to bring social media into the
everyday functions of emergency management. Even though
emergency management community is still experimenting with
using social media for two-way communications, we realize the
necessities to try such things for the future.
I have been in the business for 25 years and while I
personally do not have a Facebook page nor do I know how to
tweet, I know my customers need accurate, timely information,
and social media is a tool we must not ignore.
Thank you again for this opportunity to testify. I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ashwood follows:]
Statement of Albert Ashwood
July 9, 2013
introduction
Thank you Chairman Brooks, Ranking Member Payne, and Members of the
subcommittee for holding this hearing today. I am the director of the
Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management (OEM), and today I am
pleased to represent the National Emergency Management Association
(NEMA) as we discuss the recent tornados in my State, how social media
was utilized in this disaster, and trends of social media in the
emergency management community. NEMA represents the State emergency
management directors of the 50 States, territories, and District of
Columbia. I am also chairman of the legislative committee for the
association.
In order to effectively understand the role of social media in a
disaster, I will first outline a recent disaster in Oklahoma, describe
how social media was utilized, and then examine the larger context of
this new medium in an age-old profession.
responding to recent events
In May of this year, a series of severe weather events impacted
numerous communities in Oklahoma, including two EF5 tornadoes
developing in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area within 11 days of
each other. The EF5 is the most damaging tornado with wind speeds in
excess of 200 miles per hour. Since 1950, the EF5 and its predecessor
the F5 tornado have been documented only 60 times in the United States.
Therefore, the May events in Oklahoma should be categorized as
extremely rare in our Nation's severe weather history.
We in the emergency management profession are about people and
their capability to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate
the damages these types of events produce. Our job, like all in a
public service capacity, is one of customer service with our customers
at the local level of government. In recovery, our duty is to
administer the appropriate laws and regulations as they were intended
to help ``victims'' of disaster become ``survivors'' of disaster. I am
proud to say this is currently happening in Oklahoma.
As the live video showed the first EF5 tornado cut a path across
the community of Moore, we remained in contact with our partners with
the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Response was the
primary subject as Incident Management Teams and Urban Search and
Rescue Teams quickly dispatched to support our local first responders.
Even during this difficult time we simultaneously initiated recovery
actions.
Governor Fallin made a verbal Major Disaster Declaration request,
initiated through FEMA headquarters to the President. This was a
procedure new to me and my 25 years in this profession. In a short
period of time, the President approved the request and by sunrise the
next morning Federal equipment and personnel began pouring into
Oklahoma to assist. Within the first 24 hours, the State of Oklahoma
established Disaster Recovery Centers, dispatched Disaster Survivor
Assistance Teams dispatched, and produced recovery messaging. Recovery
was in full gear even as firefighters were still digging through piles
of debris.
To date, we have over 13,000 families registered for assistance,
with all inspections completed, and roughly $28 million disbursed for
rental assistance, repairs, low-interest loans, and grants. Of the
estimated 1.1 million cubic yards of debris, we believe 60 percent has
been removed, and we plan on completing this rest by early August. On
behalf of the State of Oklahoma, I offer a sincere ``thank you'' to
Administrator Fugate, our FEMA partners, and you who continually
support this agency and our mission in Congress.
utilizing social media in disasters
Social media once again played an integral role in disaster
communications following the tornadoes, flooding, and severe weather
that occurred between May 18 and June 2 in Oklahoma.
Due to limited staffing in the OEM, the use of social media was not
active during the initial 20 days after the first tornado. Rotating
shifts were constructed by public information officers (PIO) to assist
along with other agencies in answering media calls during call-heavy
time periods. An inadequate number of personnel made it difficult to
consistently provide Twitter or Facebook updates. Concurrently, OEM
received more than 40 Twitter mentions and 20 Facebook wall posts which
we considered positive. In numerous cases, other agencies shared the
OEM's situation updates and other information through social media. Due
to the influx in information, the OEM began actively using social media
to share recovery information for the State on June 10. Between June 10
and June 23, OEM received 105 re-Tweets and 247,578 impressions on
Twitter as well as 103 ``likes,'' 67 ``shares,'' and 16,359 people
reached on Facebook.
During the disaster, the Department leveraged social media to check
damage reports and examine photos on social media sites. This was
especially useful during and after the May 31 storms when an EF5
tornado impacted El Reno and continued southeast through the Oklahoma
City metro area. Damage reports were limited even as local news was
broadcasting uninterrupted coverage, so OEM used social media to gain
situational awareness about the level of damage in those early hours
following the storms.
As the storms continued, the amount of information on social media
sites gained momentum. The ``likes'' on the OEM Facebook page increased
by more than 200 and total reach increased from around 200 prior to the
disaster to nearly 8,000 by mid-June. To assist the public with
information, Oklahoma Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) and
Oklahoma Interactive developed a disaster-specific website which became
a centralized location for disaster information from OEM, other State
agencies, voluntary organizations, and others. The website received
118,000 visits in 18 days.
Determining the right language to use, in this case the correct
``hashtag,'' helped separate the weather-related tweets from others
during the disaster. The hashtag used during and after the disaster had
been used for the last few years during all types of severe weather
events and is well known by most Twitter-savvy Oklahomans. Along with
aligning the hashtags, more than 25 disaster-related Facebook pages
were created by users to share information about the storms, including
where to volunteer, how to donate, and other information. On Facebook,
rumors and misinformation were more widely reported, but in anecdotal
form. The OEM did not find any direct evidence of false information on
Facebook, but on several occasions people with false information said
they found the information on Facebook. In the same occurrence, Twitter
had propagation of rumors and false reports that was in direct
correlation with misinformation reported through traditional media. For
example, reports of high fatality numbers quoted on local news reports
spread quickly on Twitter. As in other events, the public took to
social media to express negative opinions of local storm reports and
other coverage from local media during the many hours of continuous
coverage.
The National Weather Service (NWS) reported an increase in use of
social media for these severe weather events. They also posted custom
graphics, including tornado track maps, at the same time they were
provided to local emergency managers. NWS saw their Twitter follower
count nearly double and their Facebook likes increased by more than
15,000. They also used custom time stamps on each of their tweets in
order to minimize confusion often caused by re-Tweeting. Along with the
OEM, Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, local
shelters, and local rescue groups used Facebook and also Pinterest to
share photos and information about hundreds of pets displaced by the
storms. Facebook especially became an invaluable tool in reuniting
survivors with lost pets.
social media trends in the emergency management community
Social Media incorporates various activities such as adapting
technology and social interface. This has proven vital to the world of
emergency management. Social networking can improve interaction between
State agencies and the public. As real-time information is communicated
to the public, the need to maintain accurate facts increases in
urgency. The concept of using social media to communicate with the
public remains a new phenomenon for many in the emergency management
community. The idea of using social media to aid in preparing for,
responding to, and recovering from disasters, has caught the attention
of many in this field. Despite the benefits and shortfalls, social
media continues to develop into an accepted form of communication. It
has changed the way information is communicated and examined with
citizens and the public. Two major trends seem to be forming as social
media takes hold in the emergency management community:
1. Disseminating Information.--The first trend seen by emergency
managers is the use of social media to convey information in or around
an affected disaster area. The versatility of this method is
recognized, yet it often lacks any guidelines to make an organized
effort to reduce the amount of chaos after a disaster. With volumes of
information potentially pouring into the EOC, important data can be
overlooked. Reliability, coordination, and integration are three
critical factors needed to determine how social media will be used from
both a public-safety aspect and as an information-sharing tool. As far
as information sharing is concerned, social media is in its maturity.
From a public-safety standpoint, social media is in its infancy.
2. Volunteer Mobilization.--Often after a disaster, volunteer work
groups come in quickly to assist communities. Without a robust
volunteer management system in place, the influx of personnel could
become a management concern. Social media has been able to bridge the
gap between the need for volunteers and the chaos which could occur in
the absence of coordination. Although social media has reduced the
amount of confusion that accompanies a disaster there are still many
avenues to be explored. The emergency management community is still in
the trial phase of using social media to assist in volunteer
management.
To help assess the value and use of social media in the emergency
management community, NEMA joined with the Center for Naval Analysis
(CNA) last year to conduct a survey. To date, much of the data on
social media and emergency management has been limited to anecdotal
accounts or studies, so the CNA-NEMA study provided valuable
information into the use of social media in emergency management. State
emergency management directors and their Public Information Officers
(PIO) were closely engaged in the development, distribution, and
completion of the survey. Key findings of the survey included:
Familiarity with Social Media.--On average, respondents
from State, county, and local levels of government all
considered themselves at least ``moderately familiar'' with
social media. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become
commonly associated with social media.
Use of Social Media.--Of those surveyed, all State emergency
management agencies use social media in some capacity, as do 68
percent of county emergency management agencies and 85 percent
of local response agencies. Of those surveyed, nearly all of
the State emergency management agencies, half of the county
emergency management agencies, and three-fifths of the local
response agencies have used social media in response to a real-
world event, primarily to push information out to the
community. Over 90 percent of the events cited were from 2011
or 2012, underscoring the recent adoption of social media.
Determining Capabilities.--Respondents were asked to
characterize their agency's social media capability along four
dimensions:
1. Governance.--Commitment and buy-in from senior leadership and
political officials at the State level is more than double
that at the county and local levels.
2. Technology.--Technology used for other purposes in an agency is
often used in an ad hoc fashion to support basic social
media operations, such as posting status updates.
3. Data/Analytics.--Data-extraction efforts at all levels are still
reliant upon manual review, making monitoring efforts
difficult to scale-up during large disasters.
4. Processes.--Formally defined and tested processes and procedures
lag behind social media use.
Trust but Verify.--Of those surveyed 59 percent of State
emergency management agencies, 55 percent of county emergency
management agencies, and 41 percent of local response agencies
trust social media less than traditional media sources. Nearly
all respondents agree that, on receiving information from
social media sources, their agency would attempt to verify this
information.
Barriers to Implementation.--Survey results indicate that
the primary barrier to emergency management agencies' use of
social media is a lack of dedicated personnel. While most
respondents indicated that they would not necessarily look to
the Federal Government to play a large role in supporting the
development of their agency's social media capabilities, they
identified prime areas for potential support, including grant
funding, training on how social media could be used, and the
provision of guidance and standards.
As a result of this effort, the State PIOs developed work groups to
examine the above findings. The work groups will:
1. Develop best practices and goals for use of social media by
State emergency managers to better target resources and funding
towards implementation of social media;
2. Develop and distribute a social media governing model that
specifically addresses the public-safety responsibilities and
the implications for emergency management and response
entities;
3. Create a template of standard operating procedures to manage
social media information to more effectively integrate social
media and public-sourced intelligence into emergency management
information processes;
4. Develop concepts for Virtual Operations Support Teams (VOST)
that allows for rapid expansion of capabilities by leveraging
trained and trusted personnel to respond both virtually via
external monitoring and response and as teams with crucial
skills for deployment to emergency operations center, and;
5. The range of non-categorical issues raised in the report.
conclusion
Social media has begun to play an integral role in emergency
preparedness, response, and recovery. By understanding the way social
media complements emergency management services, the future use of it
can greatly enhance emergency management capabilities. Social media and
its role in emergency management will continue to evolve. As the
emergency management community shifts to accept this new form of
communication, many aspects will need to be considered. A familiarity
with social media will need to be established, the capabilities that
pertain to emergency management will need to be identified and
explored, verification of information will be a requirement and it will
be critical to break down any barriers to implementation. Although the
emergency management community is still in the experimental stages of
using social media to convey important messages as well as receive
information from the public, it represents the wave of the future.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to testify today and I
welcome any questions you may have for me.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Ashwood. It is not that hard.
[Laughter.]
Mrs. Brooks. Everyone can try it.
I would like to just turn it over to the gentleman from
California for additional comments.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Chairwoman.
I am happy to introduce our final witness, Sergeant W. Greg
Kierce. Sergeant Kierce is the director of Jersey City Office
of Emergency Management and if I am not mistaken, that is in
Mr. Payne's Congressional district.
Sergeant Kierce is the director of Jersey City Office of
Emergency Management and Homeland Security, and is responsible
for planning and coordinating all facets of the city's
emergency response to large-scale events impacting the city and
the region.
Over 29 years of law enforcement experience, he has
received four Department Class A Commendations, eight Excellent
Police Service awards, and a World Trade Center award, among
many other honors.
I know how much Ranking Member Payne appreciates Sergeant
Kierce traveling down to Washington to testify today. I want to
thank you for being here as well and look forward to your
testimony.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
The Chairwoman now recognizes Sergeant Kierce for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF W. GREG KIERCE, DIRECTOR, JERSEY CITY OFFICE OF
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AND HOMELAND SECURITY
Sergeant Kierce. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Chairwoman Brooks and distinguished Members of the United
States House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security,
I wish to extend my sincere appreciation to Representative
Donald Payne, Jr. for affording me the opportunity to appear
before you today.
As technology continues to evolve, emergency management
organizations must adapt to new ways of responding to the media
and public. The way people communicate and receive information
has gone through a radical transformation in the last few years
with the invention of social media.
The potential applications of social media information for
disaster managers include providing, evidence of pre-incident
activity, near real-time notice of an incident occurring,
first-hand reports of incident impacts, and gauging community
response to an emergency warning.
This information will contribute towards effective
decisions for emergency responses. Yet to do this, emergency
services organizations need a reliable way to identify and
analyze emerging topics that indicate a significant disaster,
emergency event, or unexpected incident is occurring within a
given time frame and at a given location.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency wrote in its 2013
National Preparedness report that during and immediately
following Hurricane Sandy, ``users sent more than 20 million
Sandy-related Twitter posts, or `tweets,' despite the loss of
cell phone service during the peak of the storm.''
New Jersey's largest utility company, PSE&G, said at the
subcommittee hearing that during Sandy they staffed up their
Twitter feeds and used them to send word about the daily
locations of their giant tents and generators.
``At one point during the storm, we sent so many tweets to
alert customers, we exceeded the number of tweets allowed per
day,'' PSE&G'S Jorge Jose Cardenas, vice president of Asset
Management and Centralized Services, told the subcommittee.
Following the Boston Marathon bombings, one-quarter of
Americans reportedly looked to Facebook and Twitter and other
social networking sites for information, according to The Pew
Research Center.
The sites also formed a key part of the information cycle
when the Boston Police Department posted its final
``CAPTURED!!!'' tweet of the manhunt, more than 140,000 people
retweeted it.
Community members via a simple Google document offered
strangers lodging, food, or a hot shower when roads and hotels
were closed. Google also adapted its Person Finder from
previous use with natural disasters.
Emergency Responders are some of the biggest beneficiaries
of social media. They also have to manage the challenges that
these new networks present. Traditional lines of communications
have been redrawn and social media has changed the singular
authority that first responders require.
As each disaster sparks its own complex web of fast-paced
information exchange it can both improve disaster response and
allow affected populations to take control of their situation
as well as feel empowered.
Drawing up an effective social media strategy and tweaking
it to fit an emergency, however, is a crucial part of
preparedness planning. As part of disaster preparedness it
would be useful to teach the public how to use social media
effectively, how to get information from the web, and also how
to put out useful information.
The challenge for first responders is how to integrate the
directives that they formulate with the social media
conversations impacted citizens are engaged in. Developing an
informed public is the first step in getting both citizens and
first responders working together.
Applying social media tactics to corporate and Government
crisis communication has several advantages.
First, it brings credibility to your organization at a time
when it is likely to be most needed. This occurs because the
use of social media, including but not limited to blogging and
podcasting, is inherently conversational and transparent
allowing near real-time information to be disseminated to
concerned citizens, employees, and the media.
At the same time, it prompts discussion, debate, and
feedback from the very people who most care about the crisis
and who are more likely to shape the lasting perception of the
incident once the immediacy dies down.
Social media also guarantees your message will be heard.
Because there are no press deadlines, no misinformed reporters,
and no need for the use of information technology department,
you can disseminate the information how you want to and as
quickly as you want.
Another benefit of social media is that it provides a
unique and efficient way for crisis communicators to defend an
organization's brand and reputation.
For example, if a blog is speaking negatively about an
organization or spreading false information, crisis
communication can respond by posting counter remarks or linking
to other blogs and on-line content that sets the record
straight.
Key points to consider as to the use of social media--you
need to slow down the freight train that is coming at you. Use
your social voice to let the public know you are aware of the
situation, you are looking to find the answers, and you will be
providing the facts as they become available. Putting the
brakes on even a bit at time will slow the velocity.
When the crisis hits, start setting up alerts and searches
based on the information you have, and who is talking about it.
Talk to your people and determine what is factual is and what
is not. Here is the key to remember; if there is one ounce of
truth to what has caused the crisis, then that is what is
needed to focus on. Kill the rumors, provide the facts, and
clarify the issues at play. This will remove the momentum.
Tackle the issues head-on. This is not the time to try to
spin the story or make excuses for what occurred. This is time
for concrete facts and humility. ``We are sorry. We are human.
We strive for better and you deserve better.''
These are three sentences can suck the oxygen out of a
fiery room and remove the fuel. Own the situation. Explain what
was wrong, why it was wrong, and how you will prevent it from
happening in the future. Once you do that, the worst that can
happen is people will agree with you.
Misinformation and competing directives can often come from
unofficial sources and reach large numbers of people through
viral distribution. On the other hand, social media allows
first responders to communicate directly with citizens without
having to rely on third parties like traditional media.
A recent Red Cross survey asked 1,058 adults as to their
use of social media sites in emergency situations. It found
that if they needed help and couldn't reach 9-1-1, 1 in 5 would
try to contact responders through a digital means such as
email, websites, or social media.
If web users knew of someone else who needed help, 44
percent would ask other people in their social network to
contact authorities, 35 percent would require post for help
directly on response agency's Facebook page, and 28 percent
would send a direct tweeter message to first responders.
It is human nature to want to help people who need it. As
social networks cut out the middle man in traditional media and
put ordinary citizens in direct contact with those in emergency
situations, the impulse to help is even stronger.
As a result, people organize amongst themselves to solve
problems. In some cases it is in concert with emergency
professionals; however, in other situations it's not possible,
and people act independently to issue help on the scene.
Social media can help in both of these instances. The key
to marshalling whatever help is available is to identify and
prioritize needs that arise from the crisis and to track
whether these needs are met.
Because of the popularity of Facebook and Twitter, many
help actions have begun on these networks but because they
haven't been designed to do this kind of work; the utility is
limited.
One thing is clear, the public's use of social media in
crises is growing. One of the many challenges this presents is
the ability of first responders and governments to monitor the
information and act on it in a timely manner.
The advent of social media has revolutionized the ways
people communicate and gather information about stories and
topics that are important to them. This change has adversely
affected the way public information officers must interact with
the public and media during emergencies.
By complementing your first emergency communication plan
with social media techniques, your organization has a better
chance of communicating messages, informing the public and
media, and ultimately surviving a crisis situation.
The first people to respond during a disaster are usually
not trained responders or other professionals. Frequently, they
are simply bystanders. The enormous potential of social media
is to leverage this fact to turn bystanders into lifesavers.
Also like to--New Technology; Mutualink Interoperability
Communication Systems.
Behind any collaborative and coordinated undertaking, there
must be effective communications. There is a misconception that
the Government can quickly and effectively respond in all
incidents. In reality, a wide range of situations can occur in
your community that requires varied degrees of response at
different times of the situations.
This is most often true in long-running or unfolding
emergencies such as large natural or man-made disasters. In
these situations, often the need for communications continuity
across functions and sectors, such as communications among
tactical, logistical, and public outreach, is often overlooked.
This can hamper response, mitigation, and recovery efforts
in many ways. This includes unnecessary traffic congestion or
key transit points being blocked, medical, food, and shelter
services being overwhelmed, and/or improperly located.
During incidents many communications channels will reach
peak capacity and alternate means of communications will be
required to alleviate or supplement first-line communications
resources.
Enabling interoperable communications among disparate
communications assets plays an important role in ensuring both
seamless communication among different agencies and entities,
regardless of the communications resources but also provides
the needed flexibility to supplement availability and
circumvent communications limitations when primary
communications resources are unavailable.
A wide variety of communications resources are available
and used within our communities. These include a plethora of
two-way radio systems, the public telephone system, mobile
telephone, satellite, and broadband data working providing IP
communications.
Despite a decade of significant investments and concerted
efforts, a pervasive National communication interoperability
solution for emergency response has remained a bridge too far;
at best, small pockets of interoperable communications ability
existing among a few select agencies.
With advanced and affordable interoperable communications
resource sharing, these assets can be harnessed to provide a
resilient and ubiquitous communications environment that will
enable seamless communications across a multitude of partners,
and provide critical communications paths with them.
Developing----
Mrs. Brooks. Sergeant, I need you to wrap up. Thank you.
Sergeant Kierce. Thank you.
Mrs. Brooks. Okay. Well, we just want to get to our
questions. Any final comment?
Sergeant Kierce. The final comment would be, Chairwoman, I
just want to continue on this Mutualink, it will take just a
couple of seconds.
In 2009, for the first time, a public safety emergency
response marine vessel was outfitted with an advanced
multimedia interoperable emergency communications system that
is currently in use in Jersey City.
This vehicle was also pressed into service and during the
historic flight on the Hudson and we were able to interoperate
with--provide interoperable communications between all first
responders and also provided real-time situational awareness
video to the first hospitals and things of that nature.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Sergeant Kierce follows:]
Prepared Statement of W. Greg Kierce
July 9, 2013
Chairman McCaul and distinguished Members of the United States
House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security I wish to
extend my sincere appreciation to Representative Donald Payne, Jr. for
affording me the opportunity to appear before you this morning.
As technology continues to evolve, emergency management
organizations must adapt to new ways of responding to the media and
public. The way people communicate and receive information has gone
through a radical transformation in the last few years with the
invention of social media.
The potential applications of social media information for disaster
managers include providing:
evidence of pre-incident activity;
near real-time notice of an incident occurring;
first-hand reports of incident impacts;
gauging community response to an emergency warning.
This information will contribute toward effective decisions for
emergency responses. Yet to do this, emergency services organizations
need a reliable way to identify and analyze emerging topics that
indicate a significant disaster, emergency event, or unexpected
incident is occurring within a given time frame and at a given
location.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) wrote in its 2013
National Preparedness Report that during and immediately following
Hurricane Sandy, ``users sent more than 20 million Sandy-related
Twitter posts, or `tweets,' despite the loss of cell phone service
during the peak of the storm.''
New Jersey's largest utility company, PSE&G, said at the
subcommittee hearing that during Sandy they staffed up their Twitter
feeds and used them to send word about the daily locations of their
giant tents and generators. ``At one point during the storm, we sent so
many tweets to alert customers, we exceeded the [number] of tweets
allowed per day,'' PSE&G'S Jorge Cardenas, vice president of asset
management and centralized services, told the subcommittee.
Following the Boston Marathon bombings, one-quarter of Americans
reportedly looked to Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking
sites for information, according to The Pew Research Center.
The sites also formed a key part of the information cycle: When the
Boston Police Department posted its final ``CAPTURED!!!'' tweet of the
manhunt, more than 140,000 people re-tweeted it.
Community members via a simple Google document offered strangers
lodging, food, or a hot shower when roads and hotels were closed.
Google also adapted its Person Finder from previous use with natural
disasters.
Emergency Responders are some of the biggest beneficiaries of
social media, they also have to manage the challenges that these new
networks present. Traditional lines of communication have been redrawn
and social media has challenged the singular authority that First
Responders require.
As each disaster sparks its own complex web of fast-paced
information exchange it can both improve disaster response and allow
affected populations to take control of their situation as well as feel
empowered.
Drawing up an effective social media strategy and tweaking it to
fit an emergency, however, is a crucial part of preparedness planning.
As part of disaster preparedness it would be useful to teach the public
how to use social media effectively, how to get information from the
web and also how to put out useful information.
The challenge for First Responders is how to integrate the
directives that they formulate with the social media conversations
impacted citizens are engaged in. Developing an informed public is the
first step in getting both citizens and first responders working
together.
Applying social media tactics to corporate and Government crisis
communication has several advantages.
First, it brings credibility to your organization at a time when it
is likely to be most needed. This occurs because the use of social
media--including but not limited to blogging and podcasting--is
inherently conversational and transparent allowing near real-time
information to be disseminated to concerned citizens, employees, and
the media. And at the same time, it prompts discussion, debate, and
feedback from the very people who most care about the crisis and who
are more likely to shape the lasting perception of the incident once
the immediacy dies down.
Social media also guarantees your message will be heard. Because
there are no press deadlines, no misinformed reporters, and no need for
the use of your Information Technology department, you can disseminate
the information how you want and as quickly as you want.
Another benefit of social media is that it provides a unique and
efficient way for crisis communicators to defend an organization's
brand and reputation. For example, if a blog is speaking negatively
about an organization or spreading false information, crisis
communicators can respond by posting counter remarks or linking to
other blogs and on-line content that sets the record straight.
Key points to consider as to the use of social media:
You need to slow down the freight train that is coming at
you. Use your social voice to let the public know you are aware
of the situation, you are looking to find the answers, and you
will be providing the facts as they become available. Putting
the brakes on even a bit at a time will slow the velocity.
When the crisis hits, start setting up alerts and searches
based on the information you have, and who is talking about it.
Talk to your people and determine what is factual and what is
not. Here is the key to remember--if there is one ounce of
truth to what has caused the crisis, then that is what you need
to focus on. Kill the rumors by provide the facts and clarify
the issues at play. This will remove the momentum.
Tackle the issues head on. This is not the time to try to
spin the story or make excuses for whatever has occurred. This
is time for concrete facts and humility. ``We're sorry. We're
human. We strive for better and you deserve better.'' These
three sentences can suck the oxygen out of a fiery room and
remove the fuel. Own the situation. Explain what was wrong, why
it was wrong, and how you will prevent it from happening in the
future. Once you do that, the worst that can happen is people
agree with you.
Misinformation and competing directives can often come from
unofficial sources and reach large numbers of people through
viral distribution. On the other hand, social media allows
First Responders to communicate directly with citizens without
having to rely on third parties like traditional media.
A recent Red Cross survey asked 1,058 adults about their use of
social media sites in emergency situations. It found that if they
needed help and couldn't reach
9-1-1, 1 in 5 would try to contact responders through a digital means
such as e-mail, websites, or social media. If web users knew of someone
else who needed help, 44 percent would ask other people in their social
network to contact authorities, 35 percent would post a request for
help directly on a response agency's Facebook page and 28 percent would
send a direct Twitter message to responders.
It is human nature to want to help people who need it. As social
networks ``cut out the middle man'' in traditional media and put
ordinary citizens in direct contact with those in emergency situations,
this impulse to help is even stronger. As a result, people organize
amongst themselves to solve problems. In some cases this is in concert
with emergency professionals; however, in other situations it's not
possible, and people act independently to issue help on the scene.
Social media can help in both of these instances. The key to
marshalling whatever help is available is to identify and prioritize
needs that arise from the crisis and to track whether these needs are
met. Because of the popularity of Facebook and Twitter, many help
actions begin on these networks but because they haven't been designed
to do this kind of work, their utility is limited.
One thing is clear--the public's use of social media in crises is
growing. One of the many challenges this presents is the ability of
first responders and governments to monitor this information and act on
it in a timely manner.
The advent of social media has revolutionized the way people
communicate and gather information about stories and topics that are
important to them. This change has adversely affected the way public
information officers must interact with the public and media during
emergencies. By complementing your emergency communication plan with
social media techniques, your organization has a better chance of
communication messages, informing the public and media and ultimately
surviving a crisis situation.
The first people to respond during a disaster are not usually
trained responders or other professionals--frequently, they are simply
bystanders. The enormous potential of social media is to leverage this
fact to turn bystanders into lifesavers.
new technology: mutualink interoperable communications system
Behind any collaborative and coordinated undertaking, there must be
effective communications. There is a misconception that the Government
can quickly and effectively respond in all incidents. In reality, a
wide range of situations can occur in your community that requires
varied degrees of response at different times of the situations.
This is most often true in long-running or unfolding emergencies
such as large natural and man-made disasters. In these situations,
often the need for communications continuity across functions and
sectors, such as communications among tactical, logistical, and public
outreach, is often overlooked.
This can hamper response, mitigation, and recovery efforts in many
ways. This includes unnecessary traffic congestion or key transit
points being blocked, medical, food, and shelter services being
overwhelmed, and/or improperly located. During incidents many
communications channels will reach peak capacity and alternate means of
communication will be required to alleviate or supplement first-line
communications resources.
Enabling interoperable communications among disparate
communications assets plays an important role in ensuring both seamless
communications among different agencies and entities, regardless of
their communications resources, but also provides the needed
flexibility to supplement availability and circumvent communications
limitations when primary communications resources are unavailable.
A wide variety of communications resources are available and used
within our communities. These include a plethora of two-way radio
systems, the public telephone system, mobile telephone, satellite, and
broadband data networks providing IP communications.
Despite a decade of significant investments and concerted efforts,
a pervasive National communication interoperability solutions for
emergency response has remained a bridge too far with, at best, small
pockets of interoperable communications ability existing among a few
select agencies.
With advanced and affordable interoperable communications resource
sharing, these assets can be harnessed to provide a resilient and
ubiquitous communications environment that will enable seamless
communications across a multitude of partners, and provide critical
communications paths among them.
Developing partnerships, engaging in planning and practice, and
utilizing new and affordable communications bridging technology to
facilitate communications among partners is essential to modern-day
emergency preparedness and response best practices.
The Mutualink Interop Network is a ground-breaking method of
connectivity. The network operates in a peer-to-peer environment that
can be accessed via dedicated or virtual connections. The plug-and-play
structure of the network eliminates complex and expensive
configurations.
Entities joining the Mutualink Interops Network are ``automatically
discovered'' by all existing network participants make the
determination whether to include new Mutualink subscribers in their
visible list of network peers. Additionally, network participants can
search the directory by geography and entity type developing
communities of similar agencies.
Communications on the secure Mutualink Network are end-to-end
encrypted using Federally-approved AES ciphers and are mutually
authenticated using standard-based public-key cryptography.
An Interoperability WorkStation serves two primary functions: It is
the point of communication between two entities on the network for
voice, text, and sharing data files; it is also the control point by
which resources may be contributed to the incidents.
The Interoperability WorkStation (IWS) allows users to communicate
in several distinct methods:
Intercom allows communications between Interoperability
Workstations during an incident.
Transmit broadcasts to radio and other resources
participating in incidents and IWS users can text messages and
share video feeds and data files with other incident
participants.
Additionally, portable configurations of the Interoperability
WorkStation can be moved, at any time to pre-determined destinations
with qualified broadband access, providing users with back-up dispatch
capabilities.
It is a well-established fact that most of the NYC police and fire
department first responders at the World Trade Center in the immediate
aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks had virtually no ability to
communicate with each other. That utter lack of ``interoperability''
has been enshrined in the history books as one of the monumental
shortcomings of that tragic day.
It is far less known that almost 8 years later, on the day that
Captain Chesley Sullenberger brought his Airbus A320 airliner down
safely in what has since been dubbed ``The Miracle on the Hudson,''
that many of the police, fire, and emergency services agencies on the
New Jersey side of the Hudson River--as well as many of the nearby New
Jersey hospitals--were able to benefit from a remarkable degree of
communications interoperability.
At the request of the New Jersey State Police OEM the Jersey City
OEM Homeland Security Mobile Command/Communications vehicle equipped
with the Mutualink Interoperability system was dispatched that day to
Weehawken, NJ.
On-board cameras connected thru the Mutualink system focused on the
floating, crippled aircraft, where they were able to capture video
images of the stunned passengers, and share those images in real-time
with area hospitals, emergency rooms, other public safety agencies and
local command centers.
In October 2009 for the first time, a public safety emergency
response marine vessel was outfitted with an advanced multimedia
interoperable emergency communications platform enabling seamless
communications, and video and information sharing among agencies both
in the water and on the ground.
The system, developed by Mutualink, allows real-time coordination
during incident response by enabling communications between
incompatible two-way and push-to-talk radios, telephone PBX systems,
and mobile telephones, along with the ability to share and view live
feeds from video camera networks traditionally not accessible by remote
parties. Following 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, attaining
interoperability between technologies that are normally incompatible
with each other to improve response has been a Federal priority.
The state-of-the-art boat dedicated in the honor of fallen police
officer Marc Dinardo was acquired by the Jersey City Office of
Emergency Management/Homeland Security thru Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) funds and is
operated by the Jersey City Police Emergency Services Unit. It patrols
the same Hudson River waters where US Airways Flight 1549 made a
successful water landing and supplements maritime assets of the NYPD,
NJSP, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
In 2012 a Bomb Command vehicle was purchased for the Jersey City
Police Emergency Services Unit thru DHS UASI funding and this to was
outfitted with a Mutualink system. As was the case with the marine
vessel, Mutualink designed a special application providing connectivity
to the on-board bomb robot enabling bomb technicians to share video
with counterparts throughout the country greatly enhancing information-
sharing capabilities.
Mutualink CEO Mark Hatten credits the success of the project to
Jersey City's progressive leadership and commitment in the area of
homeland security and emergency preparedness. ``Jersey City has been at
the forefront of interoperable emergency communications and from the
beginning it has been a guiding force in helping us shape a solution
that meets the rigors and needs of responders and personnel in real
situations. The maritime interoperable communications deployment
directly results from Jersey City's vision of enabling unified
communications capabilities across all environments,'' stated Hatten.
Previous projects with Jersey City included the installation of
Mutualink into their mobile command vehicle, the first to operate over
a wireless data connection, as well as into their Emergency Operations
Center. Hatten added, ``When Jersey City came to us with the idea of
doing a marine deployment, we saw it as a great opportunity for both
sides to work together and make it a reality.'' Mutualink developed a
hardened interoperable work station that can be used not only in harsh
maritime environments experienced by tactical and response boats, but
also in other severe land-based environments.
The successful deployment into a marine environment required
Mutualink to engineer a new piece of hardware capable of operating in
extreme environmental conditions. A new Interoperability Work Station
(IWS) was developed within an IP67-rated waterproof enclosure requiring
no outside ventilation for cooling and flash drive technology was
incorporated to handle the excessive vibrations and pounding a boat
typically experiences on the water at high speeds. A Furuno 17'' LCD
screen displays the Mutualink software and video while communication
audio is capable of coming over an amplified speaker system or a
privacy handset. Data connectivity is accomplished using a
FiretideTM wireless mesh network with antennas directed out
over the water carrying the encrypted data back to land where it then
rides Jersey City's fiber network. Mutualink can also operate in a
mobile environment over satellite and cellular data networks.
Mutualink has significantly enhanced our capabilities to react and
respond internally but also our ability to interoperate with any other
agency on the network including many of our neighbors and critical
assets in the private sector to include:
Newport Shopping Mall (Directly connected to inter-state
(PATH) and inter-county transit (Hudson Bergen Light Rail)
systems).
New Jersey City University, Saint Peters University.
Jersey City Public School System (Sixteen facilities with
approximately 35 thousand students).
Jersey City Medical Center (Level 2 trauma center).
Christ Hospital.
Jersey City 9-1-1 Emergency Communications Center.
Port Authority of NY/NJ Police Communications Desk.
Goldman Sachs (Jersey City Gold Coast Financial area).
Le Frak organization (Largest property owner of residential
and commercial properties located in the Hudson River Newport
area).
Mack-Cali properties.
This is all accomplished using the same communications
infrastructure we already have in place. Newark, Paramus, Trenton, and
Atlantic City are just some of the New Jersey cities already using the
Mutualink system along with 22 area hospitals in northern New Jersey
which can now interoperate via dispatcher, radio, video, and text
messaging.
Enhanced communications continue to be of vital importance for
effective response to disasters. Lack of communications directly
contributes to low levels of situational awareness for both high-level
commanders and emergency responders in the field.
When all lines of contact are down, effective response to disaster
is greatly diminished. Establishing and maintaining lines of direct
contact between decision makers, formal and informal responders,
Government officials, and the public is a primary objective in any
emergency planning or response scenario.
A continuing reexamination of providing emergency communications is
critical for lessening their impacts of future disasters. Utilizing
advances in technology that allow for higher degrees of mobility for
communications systems introduces a new level of flexibility for
operational command structures.
In closing, I would like to once again express my sincere gratitude
for affording me this opportunity to appear before you today.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Sergeant.
At this time, I would like to recognize myself for 5
minutes of questions.
I think it is clear from what we have heard that social
media and the use and the dependence by the public, it is
obvious, and so I think a critical issue, I am going to start
out with you Mr. Ashwood, because you obviously talked about
what happened in Oklahoma and our thoughts and our prayers are
with those who are now recovering, and I know it is going to
take a long time to recover from such devastating tornadoes.
You talked about how social media was relied upon and was used
in Oklahoma.
What my concern is, and from my time with talking with
first responders in Indiana, is how are the personnel in your
agencies--whether it is in Oklahoma or on behalf of NEMA--you
are representing, you know, National emergency managers--what
kind of training are people receiving on the use of social
media either from Federal Government sources such as FEMA or
from any other source?
What kind of training do people have, because when I think
as I mentioned before the hearing began at a conference where I
recently spoke to several hundred personnel from Indiana
focused on emergency management--when I talked about social
media, everyone was quite nervous. I could tell that people are
very nervous about their lack of preparedness, their lack of
abilities, and so what are we doing with respect to training?
Mr. Ashwood. Well, I think it is important to say that of
course social media is an evolutionary process that we are
going through right now. It is not just Twitter and Facebook,
it is what it might be 10 days from now or 5 years from now,
and we need to make sure that we stay as close to the curve as
possible and a lot of that has to do with the training and what
exactly we offer and what exactly we take.
The opportunities are there. FEMA does a good job of making
opportunities available for social media training as well as
other entities. Our staff in Oklahoma has taken training, but
more importantly, we have distributed the training to our local
emergency managers. We have done that through our public
information officers' course.
We have also done that through a homeland security course
that is offered through FEMA that we have utilized as well. So
getting it down to the very lowest levels to me is more
important than what even we have at the State level.
We need to make sure that the grassroots effort of knowing
that social media is there and it is part of our existence and
that it is part of our response and recovery efforts from this
point forward is more important than exactly what my staff has
even right now that they will also get it as well.
I know that is going to be different from State to State. I
can only speak on Oklahoma with this issue, but the
opportunities are there is what I will say. Whether or not they
are taken advantage of, it depends on each State.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
I would like to--I have a question for FEMA, for Mr.
Adamski.
One of the things that we learned not only in the survey,
but from our hearing, at the last hearing we had on social
media with the private sector was that the data extraction
efforts at all levels are reliant upon a manual review often
making monitoring efforts difficult to scale up during large
disasters.
We know that Red Cross has their digital operation center
to help monitor the high volume of social media posts, but we
heard from Google and Palantir and other companies that there
is software support to help the first-responder communities and
nonprofit organizations collect and analyze this information.
How is FEMA using these analytical tools to help sift
through all of the data? How are you partnering with the
private-sector companies to take the tools that they are
creating? How is FEMA using this in this effort and then
pushing it out to the State and locals?
Mr. Adamski. Absolutely. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, for
the question.
For the last couple of years, we have been doing it
manually, which I believe is a tip to our hat in the fact that
we have staff who are trained and who are doing that human
analysis.
To your point about the volume of data and scaling it, that
is why, we are, when we have recently been looking at tools
where we can automate the analysis, when we do social listening
similar to what the Red Cross does. So we can look for those
trends as well as to improve and increase our operational
efficiencies as well.
So we do training with both our headquarters staff as well
as our regional staff as well, who are digital communication
specialists and they share those lessons learned and share best
practices with their State counterparts and with all of their
counterparts across all levels of Government as well and we
also share best practices with international counterparts as
well.
So it is looking at how we can now learn from previous
disasters as well as our relationships with the private sector
of how we can utilize their tools if there are new trends and
that are out there as well as looking at articles and best
practices that anybody out in the private sector is using with
regard to the tools to provide good customer service and
stakeholder outreach.
Mrs. Brooks. How large is FEMA's digital engagement team
and what kind of training actually since so many rely on FEMA,
to then create the training and push it out, can you share with
us just very briefly?
Mr. Adamski. Absolutely. It is about 20 people. That
includes both headquarters staff, regional staff who are in our
regional offices, as well as our joint field offices. So the
digital communication staff have regular interactions with
their counterparts both--in the digital presence or on digital
and social media as well as all communication channels sharing
those best practices with their counterparts and answering
questions.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
I now turn it over to the gentleman from California for any
questions.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you. I wanted to start with Mr.
Adamski.
At the last hearing we heard from private-sector witnesses
that although social media has allowed us to make great strides
in how we respond to disasters or emergencies, the lack of
uniform open-source data standards hindered the abilities of
companies like Google to develop social media tools during
disasters.
Can you elaborate a little bit on what exactly they are
talking about and what you are doing and efforts that FEMA is
taking to address this?
Mr. Adamski. Absolutely. I appreciate the question.
With regard to open standards and common alerting
protocols, as the representative from Google had referenced,
that is one thing as they are saying that National Weather
Service is taking advantage of.
That is one thing that we are looking at. How can we
improve and do a better job of providing our information out
there to their points so anybody can go out there and use it,
it is not customized to one audience or one technology? It is
platform agnostic.
Mr. Swalwell. Just as an example, this would mean say FEMA
puts like a PDF or something on its website, that would not be
able to transfer to all of the other types of operating formats
that Google or other social media sites have. Is that as you
understood it?
Mr. Adamski. Correct, because it is static. It is not
dynamic. It can't be read by other machines and any time you
use human intervention, then you are actually, to their point,
you are actually creating more time to work on it.
Mr. Swalwell. In your testimony, you discussed FEMA's
efforts to stop the spread of misinformation through its rumor-
control website, and to me this sounds a lot like a website I
use called Snopes. Are you familiar with Snopes?
My dad will send me crazy emails. I am like, ``Dad, just go
to Snopes. This is not true. It will debunk it.''
Can you talk a little bit about the rumor control and how
you are sharing these best practices with local governments so
that they can employ this as well?
Mr. Adamski. Absolutely. The one thing that we saw from
Sandy because we did social listening, we saw there was a huge
number of false information and false rumors that were out
there.
So we wanted to be able to, on all of our digital
platforms, correct that information as well as let our partners
be force multipliers and point--and if they heard that rumor
whether 6 hours later or 2 days later, because we did see that
the same rumors kept rearing their heads back up.
So using our stakeholders to be force multipliers we found
to be very successful. We do find that after every disaster
there are sometimes rumors or misinformation as part of normal
course.
Not necessarily to the scale of what we saw with Hurricane
Sandy, but after even the Oklahoma tornadoes, we created a
small page to help correct any misinformation about disaster
services, programs, and things like that.
That is another piece of information when our regional
staff as well as headquarters staff are interacting we talk
about those best practices and how can they be utilized and why
and how social listening is important.
Mr. Swalwell. Great.
Ms. DeFrancis, going back to the digital divide, can you
describe what efforts the Red Cross is taking to ensure that
traditional forms of communication are preserved as social
media is still being integrated into disaster response?
Ms. DeFrancis. Sure. Thank you for that question. As I
mentioned, TV, radio, and on-line websites are still the place
that most people go to get their information. So we make sure
that we have a very strong presence on all of those operations.
We have an advanced public affairs team that goes to the
site of every disaster to communicate information to the
public. We are getting out in advance of a, you know, a
disaster we know is coming, we are putting out information in
advance about how to prepare through all those traditional
means.
So we feel very strongly that--in fact, I remember during
Sandy, we knew we were getting through to a community when they
were tired of hearing our bullhorn coming through the streets,
but we feel very strongly that we need to continue to employ
those traditional means of conditions----
Mr. Swalwell. All of the above of course.
Ms. DeFrancis [continuing]. Recognized. Yes.
Mr. Swalwell. Great.
Finally, Sergeant Kierce, I wanted to talk a little bit
about the Urban Area Security Initiative grant also known as
UASI. We have in our district, the Alameda County Sheriff's
Office, they put on what is called Urban Shield; it is a
training exercise that actually, the Boston Police Department
attended and then they put on their own Urban Shield to train
first responders and evaluate how they respond to terrorist
situations like a mass transit casualty situation, and I am
wondering how have programs like that Homeland Security Grant
program helped Jersey City achieve the interoperability
capabilities that you have talked about?
Sergeant Kierce. Well, Congressman, basically with the
Urban Area Security Initiative, Jersey City and Newark are the
two main cities that make up the Jersey City/Newark UASI with
the 7 contiguous counties.
As I started to get into the program Mutualink, it allowed
two things. It established interoperability between all of the
different agencies that respond to events both in Jersey City
and Hudson County and for the entire region.
It also allowed us to share or establish a private-sector
information-sharing platform where the Jersey City waterfront
houses many of the large financial entities that obviously are
involved in global economy, and we always had reason to have to
get information to them as quickly as possible because of
anything that could impact them.
What we have done through the UASI dollars has been able to
embrace a program where we can actually bring these folks in
and you are dealing with real-time situational awareness,
receiving information once it is vetted with us for accuracy,
and it helps them actually, you know, perform their business,
but without this UASI dollars, none of this would have been
possible.
Mr. Swalwell. Great. Thank you, Sergeant Kierce.
Thank you, Chairwoman.
Mrs. Brooks. The Chairwoman will now recognize other
Members of the subcommittee for questions they may wish to ask
of the witnesses, and in accordance with our committee rules
and practice, I plan to recognize Members who were present at
the start of the hearing by seniority on the subcommittee and
those coming in later will be recognized in order of arrival.
So at this time, I would recognize the gentleman from
Mississippi, Mr. Palazzo for 5 minutes.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Chairwoman Brooks, and thank you
for holding this timely, relevant, and extremely important
hearing especially because we are only 39 days into hurricane
season.
In Part I of this hearing a couple of months ago, I
highlighted the fact that when Hurricane Katrina devastated my
district in the Gulf Coast in 2005, Facebook was still an
infant relatively speaking, Twitter was nonexistent, and the
first iPhone wouldn't come out for almost a year later.
I also highlighted the use of social media during Hurricane
Sandy where millions of people went to social media, shared
information, watched live Twitter feeds, and checked up on
loved ones.
But despite the explosion of social media used during
disasters, many people don't know where to go for credible
information. Although most of it--if not, almost most--excuse
me--although most, if not all States have emergency agencies
and they have Twitter handles, their followers pale in
comparison to the actual population of each State.
For example, Mississippi has a population of 3 million, but
the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency only has 8,000
followers on its Twitter page. New Jersey has 13,000 followers
despite 9 million citizens. The State of New York has 19
million residents, but its emergency management Twitter handle
only has 64,000 followers.
These State agencies constantly provide disaster warnings,
preparation tips, and critical information, yet only a fraction
of Americans directly follow their social media pages.
This morning, I tweeted links to the social media pages of
Mississippi's Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, the Red Cross,
and the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I encourage
all of my colleagues on this committee and in Congress to do
the same and encourage their constituents to follow their own
State emergency management agency's social media page.
By tweeting this information, our constituents can know
where to go for on-line information before, during, and after a
disaster strikes and won't have to make judgment calls as to
whether the information they are getting is credible.
So this leads to my question. How can FEMA, State agencies,
and Red Cross quickly and better develop a large on-line
presence that people will instinctively know where to go for
credible information?
Ladies first.
Ms. DeFrancis.
Ms. DeFrancis. Thank you, Congressman.
Well, we have been working at it for a while. I mean, we
just, I think last week, we passed our 1 millionth Twitter
follower, which we were very proud of, and we have about over
half a million on Facebook, and of course we are on a lot of
the other platforms.
If I could just recognize in the room is Wendy Harman who
helped build our social strategy at the Red Cross and now she
is moving into our disaster operations team to help integrate
this information because it is great to have Twitter followers,
it is great to have Facebook, but it is when you want to get
their information to people that can actually help them, get
them meals--that is what we need to do is really integrate it
better.
So we continue to build that presence and cross, so I mean
when we are giving a TV interview, we are telling people, you
know, to go check our Twitter site. We are trying to cross-
reference all of that and they are all part of I think a really
seamless 21st-Century communications shop.
I think the other thing we would say is that we are trying
to push social media out of just the public affairs shop. It
should be really part of all of our operations, whether it is
our blood centers, our, you know, our disaster people of
course, our health and safety, everyone in a--who is a subject
matter expert in a particular area of the Red Cross should be
able to use social media. It shouldn't just be handled by the
public affairs people. We call that making it part of our
operational DNA.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you.
Mr. Adamski.
Mr. Adamski. No, I appreciate the question. It is a
question that we get an awful lot because the public doesn't
also--they don't realize that FEMA as a Government agency or
even on Twitter, to your point.
So just like any organization in the private sector who
needs to do outreach education, we have to do that for
ourselves as well as we help with amplifying local and State
messages as well as accounts to your point as well, as well as
Red Cross and local Red Cross chapters, to help get that
information out there and help share to be a force multiplier
for our partners across all levels of Government.
The other piece where we try and enforce it with outreach
is on the preparedness side of making sure that folks have a
digital plan, that they know about those resources ahead of
time.
The other thing I will note real quickly as well is the
wireless emergency alerts which is a new tool that is out there
is it allows folks who have a newer phone to receive alerts in
an area where a local emergency manager would send out that
alert.
So the great thing about it is that you don't need to
subscribe or even know about it.
The one thing we are doing is educating folks on what those
alerts mean and that they should follow those local warnings
from local officials because the reason that they are pushing
that message out is because there is an imminent threat or
possibility for severe weather for example.
So it is constant education and amplification of all of our
partners' messages and accounts.
Mr. Palazzo. Well, thank you. If the Chairwoman would
indulge me for one more second, this past week we had some
severe weather in our district and my phone started alerting
me.
I didn't even know Verizon had an alert messaging system.
So those things are really handy and the fact that everybody
has some form of mobile device and have become quite dependent
upon it I think is extremely important.
But also I always want to thank our first responders--I am
definitely tongue-tied today--our emergency operation
personnel, our National Guard members, our Salvation Army, our
Red Cross.
If people don't think that they go into harm's way, I just
want to share a photo from February 10, 2013. We had an E4
tornado in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It was large. It was
violent. That is one of the disaster relief trucks of the
American Red Cross.
So we thank you and we depend on you before, during, and
after a storm.
Thank you very much.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Palazzo, well said.
I would now like to recognize the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
This question essentially goes to Mr. Adamski, at least
initially.
I believe that Twitter has been and is a very effective
tool in relaying information during emergency situations.
Unfortunately--I know we have heard a lot of good news stories
today, but I think we are charged with kind-of looking at every
facet, so unfortunately, following the Boston bombings, there
were several tweets containing damaging or potentially damaging
misinformation.
For example, there was an explosion at the JFK Library in
Boston which was connected to the original blasts or a Saudi
Arabian national has been arrested over the bombing or a Muslim
with shrapnel wounds is being guarded in a hospital as a person
of interest or blood donors are needed now, people need to go
and give blood now.
With individuals allowed to tweet and post any information
they choose, how do we guard against the spread of
misinformation that can prove detrimental to the safety of
first responders and victims and--I understand that you have
the rumor page, but then it leads to another question as well,
is what is the job, what is the role of Federal agencies and
what is the role of the private sector and where do we draw the
line and when we figure that out, and how do we figure that out
in this quickly-evolving arena?
Mr. Adamski. Absolutely. I appreciate the question.
As you know, in our role at FEMA, we coordinate emergency
response to disasters as well as support all levels of
government. With regard--you are correct with regard to social
media as far as there being the bad actors out there which is
why it is even more important to make sure that agencies are
doing a social listening.
Misinformation can come in through other communication
mediums as well, whether it is news reports, whether it is 9-1-
1. I often like to use the analogy that folks can call 9-1-1
and call in a false report. Obviously, there are mechanisms in
place to be able to root those out and figure out if it is a
false report and whatnot. So even though social media is new,
they are still going to be bad actors but there are also bad
actors in other communication mediums as well.
With regard to FEMA and the social listening that we do, we
do it within the scope of our mission of disasters and
emergency management and to the extent where we can help our
Government partners across the board we will.
I know often our regions will reach out to their State
counterparts if there is a disaster in their State and ask them
if they need any assistance with social listening for example.
Or at least--and if they don't at that time, at least they
know that that is a service that our digital communications
specialists can help with as we help support our States in that
nature, but again, we are looking at it through the lens of
disasters and emergency management.
To your point, it is important across all sectors that
because that information and that conversation is occurring,
that folks do participate in social listening.
Mr. Perry. You know, social listening, it is a term that
has been bandied about here and I don't know that it is in most
people's lives, but, you know, it leads, at least for me, it
leads to other questions.
At the least in late of events occurring in the Federal
Government recently regarding the IRS or what-have-you and you
think about applications like Google's People Finder or social
listening in particular and even the alert that the gentleman
for Mississippi got on his phone and I am wondering if, you
know, do people know?
Is this mostly--did you know that you have the application?
Do you want the application? What about HIPAA violations? You
know, somebody tweets that their grandmother's X and sends it
to Ms. DeFrancis at the Red Cross or something like that. Are
there HIPAA violation concerns?
How--you know, I am not home right now because of my home
has just been half obliterated and I am down at the neighbors
and then the looter at the next town says, ``Okay, well that is
my next target.'' I mean, how do we handle those things?
Mr. Adamski. No, absolutely. I think the public using any
social communication tool needs to be cognizant and aware that
if they are posting information in real time or if they are
posting personally identifiable information that anybody can
see that.
Even if their account is locked we recommend that they
don't post that information to your point that it is personally
identifiable information.
If we do see somebody who either sends us an email or
tweets at us or sends us a fake Facebook post and they have
that information in there that can personally identify them
then we will respond back asking them not to continue using
those communication mediums but we will give them a way to
where--an off-line way--to where we can communicate with them
as it fits into our normal operation so then they can feel
secure that their information won't be shared and that we won't
be sharing their information with--in the public space. So to
your point that others won't be able to see it.
Mr. Perry. Finally, in your interaction with your partners,
whether it is Twitter or whether it is Google, what have you,
is there ever any concern at least from their part expressed to
you about agencies like FEMA or other Government agencies
competing in a way and their domains and their intellectual
properties in these applications and so on and so forth?
I mean, I know you are trying to be proactive and we
applaud you for that, but I think we need to make sure that we
are moving with diligence in that regard. I just wonder if that
has ever been an issue that you have discussed.
Mr. Adamski. They haven't, no, they haven't raised the
concern. To your point about we are being diligent in how we
use the tool to make sure that we aren't sharing PII
information, personally identifiable information. Absolutely.
Mr. Perry. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Question for Ms. DeFrancis.
I just want to--you talked about volunteers around the
globe actually assisting with you and we had a weekly SMEM chat
on Twitter and we learned that virtual operation support teams
are volunteer teams that lend support via the internet to
emergency managers and first responders who are overwhelmed by
the volume of data that you might get created after a disaster.
Has Red Cross--is that the type of team that you are
referring to? Have they leveraged these virtual operation
support teams for your disaster relief efforts? How were they
used? I am curious how they were used, and then I would like
the others to answer as well.
Ms. DeFrancis. Sure. Well, many of the individuals on the
VOS, virtual operations teams, are also Red Cross digital
volunteers. So these are people who have an interest in helping
during a time of disaster to help organizations get out the
information they need as broadly as they can.
So while we have not use VOS specifically and they are best
at spotting trends and things like that, we have many of our
digital volunteers are also members of that and we train our
volunteers in Red Cross-specific answers. They are not just
spotting trends. There are also able to say you need to go here
for shelter. You need to go here for food and water.
So we do have a training program to enable us to do that
and be able to scale up. I think that it is an important--you
know, you don't keep a big staff. We have like three in our
National headquarters. Our chapters all are tweeting as well
and posting on Facebook, but you can't keep a big staff all the
time.
You need to have a way to scale up because we go from 4- or
5,000 mentions a day to, you know, tens of thousands of
mentions a day during a disaster and certainly people like this
who can help us scale that up are vital to doing it.
Mrs. Brooks. So approximately how many digital volunteers
does Red Cross have?
Ms. DeFrancis. I think during Sandy we used 50 of them and
that was probably the, you know, the maximum. Like I said, many
of our people in our chapters are tweeting and so we have over
300 chapters who are probably engaged. So it is hard, but I
would say 50 about now in digital--trained, digital volunteers.
Mrs. Brooks. Mr. Ashwood, any comments on your virtual
operations volunteers?
Mr. Ashwood. While we have not used the VOS acronym, it has
been part of our operations plan from many years back that we
bring in public information officers from other State agencies
that all move into our operation center as an assist during
times of disaster.
Of course, a lot of those now are being transitioned over
to the technological side to take them to Facebook, to take
them to Twitter, to help us with that messaging, and make sure
that we do get the accurate messages out there or correct those
messages that are inaccurate.
I think the bigger question here is what we do in times of
non-disaster. How do we resource to that need, that
communications need, because I can promise you any disaster if
you do a hot watch and after-action, No. 1, the issue is going
to be communications, and information is the silver bullet that
takes care of disaster victims afterwards.
If they have the proper information, they can make the
proper decisions for themselves and their family. So we have to
constantly strive to resource to that need during non-disaster
times. The question earlier about why don't people follow us
more during non-disaster times--we are not saying anything very
interesting most of the time.
We need to make sure that we are well-engaged not just from
an ancillary position here but to make sure that we are there.
Part of that new communication, that new messaging from Day 1,
whether it were during a disaster or not, and I think that is
the key to marketing the whole thing.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Sergeant Kierce, during the Hurricane Sandy episode and the
different--I am sure you dealt with a huge number of public
safety agencies in New York and New Jersey--do you know whether
or not they used digital volunteers and have these virtual
operation support teams?
Sergeant Kierce. I think one of the challenges that we
face, Chairwoman, was the fact that both Jersey City and New
York had significant power outages in addition to loss of
Verizon cellular connectivity and things of that nature.
In Jersey City in particular, we have a very large senior
citizen population so what we are doing now through our
community emergency response team training, we are kind of
embracing a scenario where we can as we train these teams, you
know, as our volunteers throughout the city to give them basic
training.
As the gentleman to my right had said too I think it has to
be more of a non-emergency, more friendly-type use scenario
because folks seem to if they don't really use it enough, they
tend not to really--forget how to use it or don't want to use
it.
So it is kind of a challenge that we all face. On my side,
I have three daughters and I learned that if you didn't speak
on Facebook they wouldn't speak to you. So I learned how to use
it pretty quickly.
Mrs. Brooks. I understand. I have the same dilemma in my
household. So thank you very much.
I will turn it over to the gentleman from California for
any further questions.
Mr. Swalwell. Sure, thank you.
I wanted to go back to Mr. Adamski. As far as the efforts
that FEMA is taking right now to work on open-source formats,
what exactly, specifically have you done so far and what can we
expect in the next say 6 months to a year?
Mr. Adamski. I appreciate the question. So as I mentioned
in my verbal remarks and in my submitted testimony, we do have
the disaster recovery center data feed which is a useful tool
where folks can go and grab that information.
With regard to what we are currently working on, it is
looking at the actual data itself and cleansing the data to
make sure it is actually good data as well as looking at the
infrastructure to be able to support, to be able to push that
information out to users.
I can't give--at this time, I can't give necessarily a time
frame, but we have multiple folks in multiple program offices
at FEMA looking at it and how it impacts each of their areas
and how we can get that information out.
So it is not a--so we are not--the conversations aren't why
should we do it, it is how do we get it done?
Mr. Swalwell. Is there a goal to have all of the data that
FEMA puts out in a open-source format that can be accessed by
all?
Mr. Adamski. I would say it depends on the data. Obviously,
we wouldn't be releasing to--we wouldn't be releasing obviously
personally identifiable information to the public or things
like that, but if it is either--if it is data from disasters
where it is not necessarily tied to an individual, then we will
look at that as well as if there are other resource information
that we can provide, safety tips as well so others can go and
grab it, take that and then put it into their products, their
websites, so the public doesn't necessarily need to come to a
FEMA product, they can actually get that information, to your
point, wherever they are going through their normal course and
we can use our partners to be force multipliers that way.
Mr. Swalwell. Great.
This question is for Mr. Ashwood and Sergeant Kierce.
We talked about that CNA report which highlighted that
although we have come a long way, there is still a lot of
challenges and the biggest being not enough people in local and
State government and even Federal Government who are trained to
use social media.
Sergeant Kierce, I think your own example, you know, even
for yourself it would seem uncomfortable and you know, I can
only imagine that millions of Americans are still just now
embracing social media and to ask these employees to use it in
a disaster situation which many times, you know, you have no
preparation, you don't know that it is coming, and now you are
put in the position where you have to get this information out
there.
What are you doing locally and what can the Federal
Government do to assist efforts to make sure everyone in the
department, not just the public relations, not just the
communications folks, that everyone who needs to relay
communication to the public is trained to do so in that kind of
all-of-the-above approach, not just social media but making
sure that it reaches everyone who needs to know?
Sergeant Kierce. Well, I think it is--communicating with
the public is always a challenge especially during emergency
situations and as I mentioned previously, you know, it seems
now from our information approximately 60 percent of the people
in the United States are dependent on cellular communication as
their primary means.
So I think although the social media networking is very,
very good, you also have to be very, very cognizant to the fact
that you have to remain in a state of readiness where you go
back to the old means of communicating where it goes back to
establishing local centers where information can be relayed to
citizens in times of need.
The other problem that I do see although it is very, very
valuable, the old saying, you can't unring the bell. Once the
information is out there, if it is inaccurate, you have to make
sure you get it back and get things back on track.
We are in a situation now where we have found that, you
know, most of the communication was done during Hurricane Sandy
when there was cellular communication capabilities through text
and things like that.
So with our--we have recently had a new administration come
in and they are very electronic-friendly where we are upgrading
all of our communications, our Twitter pages and Facebook pages
and also the website. And encouraging people to use these more
frequently as opposed to just using them during emergency
situations.
Mr. Swalwell. Great.
Mr. Ashwood, do you briefly have anything to add?
Mr. Ashwood. Just basically that the real change is with
people of my age, my generation, that we have to realize how
people communicate today, and it is not--might not be the way
that we communicated growing up.
We don't have land-lines anymore. People use cell phones.
It is a different scenario and we have to leave our comfort
zone and say how do we integrate, how do we engage, how do we
make sure that the messaging is out there?
As far as incorrect information that is out there, a lot of
that is self-correcting. You know, we talk about--and Mr.
Adamski brought it up--there are other misinformation out
there. When the traditional media comes out with
misinformation, the only person that can correct that is the
same person that told it to you.
Mr. Swalwell. Right.
Mr. Ashwood. Whereas within social media, if incorrect
information out there, you are bombarded with other tweets
coming in that are telling you that is incorrect information.
So it is almost self-correcting in that sense.
What we have to do especially like I said, the people who
are my age group and older, we have to conform to the new way
that people communicate. We have to say that this is not
comfortable to us, but it is something that we have to do for
the future.
Remember, there was a time none of us wore seatbelts and
none of us had smoke detectors either, so change is coming. It
is being done as we are sitting here. It is just going to take
a little bit of time.
Mr. Swalwell. Right.
I think Ms. DeFrancis nailed it when she said we still have
to make sure that we use traditional means and I know the Chair
was a former prosecutor, I was a former prosecutor, and I think
this analogy probably works.
I learned in the courtroom when I was presenting a case to
the jury, because of the CSI effect, I had to, you know, you
know, have PowerPoint presentations that really grabbed the
jurors, but I still had to use, you know, the cold hard
evidence and put that on the table and let them see that and it
was kind of an all-of-the-above approach.
I couldn't, you know, forget about the new technologies
that were out there but people still want the traditional means
and I think that applies here and how we use social media in
disaster response.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
I just have a couple more questions. This is actually for
Mr. Adamski.
The Department of Homeland Security runs the Virtual Social
Media Working Group and--out of the Science and Technology
Directorate and I have seen some of those reports, and their
mission is to provide best practices to the emergency
preparedness and response community on the safe and sustainable
use of social media technologies.
Does FEMA have a representative on that working group? If
so, who is that? What is their title? Does that person report
to you or maybe are you on that group?
Mr. Adamski. No, absolutely. I appreciate the question.
So, we do have a member on the working group. It is our
day-to-day social media lead, Jason Lindesmith. He served a 3-
year term and my understanding is that they asked members who
are part of the working group to serve 3-year terms.
So what we are--and since his term is up, we are looking at
a digital communication specialist in one of our regional
offices to see if we can help add that second person to the new
term.
With regard to the person, the person has a dotted line to
me. Jason has a dotted line to me.
Mrs. Brooks. Okay, thank you. I think it is very important,
the work that they are doing because obviously the best
practices--this is such an evolving, I think a communications
tool that we need to ensure that those best practices are
coming together and then are being circulated to the field so
to speak to ensure that that training happens.
Talking about one of the biggest barriers, I think, and I
think Mr. Ashwood has talked about it, with respect to
emergency management agencies' use of social media might be the
lack of dedicated personnel and, you know while maybe we
wouldn't expect for the Federal Government to pay for that
personality per se, the training, the guidance, the ability to
train and to use grant funding for this purpose I think is very
important.
To what extent, if you know, does FEMA incorporate social
media and maybe I will open it up to the others into their EMPG
grants, the homeland security grants, you know, whether or not
this type of training is provided in FEMA grants. Are you
aware?
Mr. Adamski. My understanding is that if it fits within the
emergency preparedness, their emergency preparedness activities
as well as their homeland security strategy but to your note,
though, since I am not in the grants department, we can get you
a more definitive answer.
Mrs. Brooks. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Ashwood or Sergeant Kierce, whether or not you know
whether or not social media training, helping with personnel
costs--is that an allowable expense at this point?
Mr. Ashwood. Well, the emergency management performance
grant, some view it as the emergency management preparedness
grant. It is not. It is the emergency management performance
grant and the flexibility is there for the training, for the
social media evolution here as we are at the State level and
the local level.
It is really the opportunity that is there for the States
to take advantage of. I don't see anything in EMPG that does
not allow us to do what our strategy is to engage and
incorporate social media with our locals as well as our State.
Mrs. Brooks. Thank you.
Sergeant Kierce, anything further?
Sergeant Kierce. Yes, just to echo what Mr. Ashwood said,
through the UASI program, you know, there is a considerable
amount of dollars available for information sharing, especially
between the public and private sectors, which I think is also
another avenue that needs to be explored.
Obviously, with our business communities and things like
that, they have grave concerns that many times they are not
receiving the information as quickly as possible which could
ultimately, you know, affect their business capabilities also.
Mrs. Brooks. With respect to the private sector, I am
curious, Ms. DeFrancis, whether or not Red Cross Safe and Well
website--it has been a very popular resource during recent
disasters.
Google also stated that their Person Finder program has
been very important. How are those coordinated? Speaking of the
private sector, how are we coordinating Google with Red Cross'
Safe and Well program?
Ms. DeFrancis. Thank you. Well, we developed Safe and Well
in the aftermath of Katrina and as Congressman Palazzo said,
that was a long time ago in terms of the development of digital
tools.
So we have been constantly refining it and bringing it more
up-to-date. We recently in our last redesign of it allowed that
not only would you go on Safe and Well and register, but then
you could also click on a button to post your update to
Facebook or Twitter. So more eyeballs would see that you were
doing that.
We are in discussions with Google about People Finder and
we certainly understand the importance of getting as many
people to see that, but we have certain protocols around Safe
and Well that protect privacy of people and we want to make
sure that we, in doing that, protect that.
Mrs. Brooks. I guess I will just open it up to the rest of
the panel to discuss whether or not--whether technology
companies in your own jurisdictions or Google, Twitter, you
know, what kind of communications are any of you having with
those companies?
Mr. Ashwood.
Mr. Ashwood. Well, I think the key there is the
relationship with the private sector. It doesn't matter whether
it is just social media or working directly with the private
sector on all issues of emergency management.
We have a long way to go to make sure that we are fully
incorporated within the private sector and that they are
working with us. So I think that is the real key. I know many
States are further along than others.
I know with our State that we have a Governor's private
sector task force that we are trying to utilize and really put
them in the solution business for some of the issues that we
have because, quite frankly, they have better answers than we
do many of the time--much of the time.
So we need to make sure that that relationship is strong
and keeps going and this is just one aspect that we utilize
during those conversations.
Mrs. Brooks. Anyone else? Any other discussions on the
private-sector partnerships?
Mr. Adamski. No, absolutely. So when we have that
conversation at those information-sharing sessions, we share
what information we have whether it is preparedness information
or as I said earlier, our disaster recovery center data feeds.
So we can make them aware of the tools that they can ingest
into their products as appropriate as well as in some of those
information-sharing sessions that we have had that was how we
learned that some of the platforms that are out there and
specifically Twitter, you can actually update your status
message via text message.
So if you actually sync up your account with your cellular
phone number, you can actually update your status message in
140 characters with it just having it two bars for cellular
connectivity.
So that piece goes to preparedness to all of the previous
discussions about being prepared ahead of time, having a plan
as well as letting your friends and family and loved ones know
that you are okay and sharing that information with them.
So it is those information-sharing sessions that I think
have been valuable and will continue to be valuable.
Mrs. Brooks. I would like to know and Sergeant Kierce, you
mentioned that you had so many--you had posted so much on
Twitter that it caused a problem with the number of posts, and
in fact, it is my understanding that Twitter, you can be in
Twitter jail when you post too many times.
I am curious--what are your different organizations'
relationship with Twitter? How are we handling that in these
times so that Twitter doesn't shut down your account for a
period of time? Did that happen, Sergeant Kierce, or did you
just have to deal with the shutdown for a period of time?
Sergeant Kierce. Well, you know, you are limited as far as
characters and things like that, being able to formulate many
messages especially of an emergent nature, you know, you have
to have particulars in there, so it is a bit of a challenge.
We just dealt with it. You know, and fortunately, when it
did come back on-line, it did work, but the--as I say, one of
the biggest challenges we are facing now is trying to
incorporate all of the different groups.
Special needs is a major concern we have also. So updating
our registries and things like that and kind of instructing
folks as to if in fact they do fall into that category to
embrace use of the social media where we can keep in touch with
them; very, very important.
Mrs. Brooks. Yes, Ms. DeFrancis.
Ms. DeFrancis. Chairwoman, I would say that we are in
constant discussions with all of the companies--Twitter,
Facebook, Google--all of them, and I think in terms of Twitter,
I think we have stayed out of jail by them--having previous
conversations with them, them knowing the types of things that
the Red Cross will be doing.
But, you know, we know that the next technological horizon
is going to come from those private-sector companies. We are
very excited to see what more that we can do with those tools,
and I think their involvement in all of this is really
important because that is the future and like you said, it is
Twitter and Facebook today, we don't know what it will be
tomorrow.
We have been surprised by mobile apps. We used to put all
that information on long tear sheets and hand them out. Now
they are on the convenience of your phone, and so we are pretty
excited about that, but it underscores the importance of
everybody working together.
Our relationship with the technological companies, the
internet companies, is they really want to help. They want to
be there on the front lines helping with these solutions.
Mrs. Brooks. Anyone further?
Well, thank you.
At this time I just really want to thank the witnesses for
your valuable testimony. It is building upon what we learned
from the private sector in our previous hearing.
As you have stated so eloquently, Ms. DeFrancis, that
partnership is critical, it is something we need to be looking
to the private sector to bring us the next innovations, but
then I think that the challenge is, how do we make our own
emergency responders, first responders comfortable with this
new technology?
What kind of training is being provided to them? What kind
of resources are we dedicating to this? I think we will only
see it grow from what happened in Hurricane Katrina to future
disasters and unfortunately we all know that there will be
natural disasters.
Knock on wood, hopefully no more, you know, terrorist
incidences in this country, but we must count on all of your
agencies and programs, you know, promoting the use of social
media. People are expecting it.
With the data that we have seen, people are expecting us to
respond. They are expecting us in Government and in the
recovery efforts to help them.
So I just want to thank you all so very much for your
efforts, for getting people aware and ready prior to disasters,
but then even more importantly, for your recovery and all that
you all are doing whether it is in the law enforcement,
emergency management, nonprofit, Federal Government, I just
want to thank you all so very much.
This is going to conclude our hearing at this time. Members
of the committee may have some additional questions for the
witnesses. If they had to leave, they may have some questions
which they can pose to you, ask you to respond to these in
writing, and pursuant to committee Rule 7(e), the hearing
record will be held open for 10 days.
So without objection, our subcommittee stands adjourned,
and I thank you.
[Whereupon, at 11:36 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Question From Chairwoman Susan W. Brooks for Shayne Adamski
Question. As the public has become increasingly more reliant on the
internet, and even FEMA recommends that disaster survivors register for
assistance on-line, how do you work with the private sector to ensure
that resources are brought in such as mobile cell towers and wi-fi hot
spots?
Answer. FEMA works in partnership with all levels of Government
when we respond to emergencies. One of the tools used is the National
Business Emergency Operations Center (NBEOC) that is activated during
responses and is located in the National Response Coordination Center
under Emergency Support Function No. 15. This is a primary two-way
communication flow with private-sector entities. In collaboration with
State/local/Tribal/territorial emergency managers, if there is a need
after a disaster for mobile cell towers, Wi-Fi hot spots, or even cell
phone charger stations, we utilize the NBEOC and our existing
partnerships with those in the private sector to assist with filling
this need.
As part of our preparedness messaging before an emergency, we
encourage individuals to have a NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards or Red
Cross radio to receive important updates and information from local
emergency managers. We also encourage individuals to keep on hand extra
batteries for cell phones and if they have a car, to have a phone
charger so they can charge their phone from the car battery. This
recommendation is in addition to having other basics, like extra food,
water, flashlights, and batteries. A comprehensive list of suggested
preparedness items can be found at www.ready.gov.
Question From Chairwoman Susan W. Brooks for Albert Ashwood
Question. One of the interesting things we saw in the aftermath of
the tornadoes was the use of social media to promote grassroots
participation in relief efforts. Specifically, the use of Twitter and
Facebook to connect survivors with people who were donating goods,
services, shelter, and other essential items. Was the Oklahoma
Department of Emergency Management aware of these sites when they first
surfaced, and from your perspective, how well did these efforts
complement the State's response efforts?
Answer. The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management was aware
of the websites that assisted in the response efforts. Not only did the
department know that the websites existed, but the OEM coordinated with
Oklahoma Management and Enterprise services and Oklahoma Interactive to
develop a disaster-specific website that became the centralized
location for disaster information from the Office of Emergency
Management. This website received 118,000 visits in just over 2 weeks.
This website and the creation of those like it, contributed to the
management of the goods that were donated for the masses.