Abstract
Natural hazards are becoming increasingly expensive as climate change and development are exposing communities to greater risks. Preparation and recovery are critical for climate change resilience, and social media are being used more and more to communicate before, during, and after disasters. While there is a growing body of research aimed at understanding how people use social media surrounding disaster events, most existing work has focused on a single disaster case study. In the present study, we analyze five of the costliest disasters in the last decade in the United States (Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, two sets of tornado outbreaks, and flooding in Louisiana) through the lens of Twitter. In particular, we explore the frequency of both generic and specific food-security related terms, and quantify the relationship between network size and Twitter activity during disasters. We find differences in tweet volume for keywords depending on disaster type, with people using Twitter more frequently in preparation for Hurricanes, and for real-time or recovery information for tornado and flooding events. Further, we find that people share a host of general disaster and specific preparation and recovery terms during these events. Finally, we find that among all account types, individuals with “average” sized networks are most likely to share information during these disasters, and in most cases, do so more frequently than normal. This suggests that around disasters, an ideal form of social contagion is being engaged in which average people rather than outsized influentials are key to communication. These results provide important context for the type of disaster information and target audiences that may be most useful for disaster communication during varying extreme events.
Highlights
1.1 BackgroundAs of 2017, it is estimated that 77% of Americans own and use smartphones [1]
We find that there are a variety of terms that individuals tweet about related to disaster events including general disaster terms, specific terms related to preparation for disasters and recovery efforts
The mechanisms by which information is shared across networks during disaster events can have significant implications for disaster damages and recovery
Summary
2.1 Disaster selection and characteristicsWe utilized data from the National Centers for Environmental Information within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which categorizes the economic costs of weather and climate disasters [24]. Given that we are using Twitter to analyze finite disasters over short-periods of time, we excluded long-term droughts, which in this case included the U.S drought/heatwave of 2012 (classified as lasting the entire year), the Southern Plains/Southwest drought and heatwave (Spring-Summer 2011), and the Western Plains drought/heatwave (Spring-Fall 2013). The five disasters of focus (in order of cost impacts) include Hurricane Sandy, Hurricane Irene, Southeast/ Ohio Valley/ Midwest tornadoes, Louisiana flooding, and Midwest/ Southeast tornadoes (Table 1). Direct Summary (from NOAA) Hurricane Sandy Hurricane Irene. "Extensive damage across several northeastern states (MD, DE, NJ, NY, CT, MA, RI) due to high wind and coastal storm surge, NY and NJ. Damage from wind, rain and heavy snow extended more broadly to other states (NC, VA, WV, OH, PA, NH), as Sandy merged with a developing Nor’easter. Sandy caused the New York Stock Exchange to close for two consecutive business days, which last happened in 1888 due to a major winter storm."
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