When Official Systems Overload: A Framework for Finding Social Media Calls for Help during Evacuations

During large-scale disasters it is not uncommon for Public Safety Answering Points (e.g., 9-1-1) to encounter service disruptions or become overloaded due to call volume. As observed in the two past United States hurricane seasons, citizens are increasingly turning to social media whether as a consequence of their inability to reach 9-1-1, or as a preferential means of communications. Relying on past research that has examined social media use in disasters, combined with the practical knowledge of the first-hand disaster response experiences, this paper develops a knowledge-driven framework containing parameters useful in identifying patterns of shared information on social media when citizens need help. This effort explores the feasibility of determining differences, similarities, common themes, and time-specific discoveries of social media calls for help associated with hurricane evacuations. At a future date, validation of this framework will be demonstrated using datasets from multiple disasters. The results will lead to recommendations on how the framework can be modified to make it applicable as a generic disaster-type characterization tool.