After most modern major disasters, people turn online looking for information or to offer help. Since the Internet’s development more than a decade ago, the instant communication it provides has helped connect victims and those willing to help them.
News organizations often have been at the center of this. From earthquakes to tornadoes to hurricanes, news companies have established temporary disaster areas on their Web sites where people can share information. When a deadly tornado struck the small central-Texas town of Jarrell in 1997, the Austin360.com Web site of the Austin American-Statesman turned into the principal venue for people to offer help to victims, and for survivors to seek information about still-missing friends and relatives.
But as Hurricane Katrina has shown in the last couple days, while the Internet continues to provide the principal channel for disaster communication and person-to-person assistance, news companies are no longer the only dominant player in this role.
During this Katrina crisis and recovery, that old newspaper bugaboo, Craigslist, the free-classifieds online community now in more than 100 cities, seems to have developed into one of the primary online venues for disaster communication.
People are using the New Orleans Craigslist to:
- Post notices about missing family or friends.
- Offer temporary shelter/housing to hurricane victims.
- Offer volunteer help and recruit volunteers.
- Share disaster information.
- Express their condolences or send messages of prayer.
Here’s a sampling of the types of posts showing up this week on the site: “Looking for George, Tracy and Zephyr Griswold, from Metairie” … “Former NO Resident will help make phone calls” … “Two kitties locked up in apt – help needed!” … “Free Temporary Housing for Katrina Refugee’s (Southern Illinois)” … “2br – Hurricane Katrina Victims – Free Housing Available (Atlanta).”
According to Susan Mactavish Best, Craigslist spokesperson, the New Orleans site’s pageviews Tuesday were up 300 percent over a normal day, and the number of visitors up 200 percent. In the “Lost and Found” area, 712 posts were submitted as of Tuesday, up from one or two on a typical day. There were 165 “Volunteers” posts, compared to one or two normally. “General Community” posts counted 218; three to four is normal. And 1,200 posts were submitted under “Community,” up from 25-40 on an average day.
It’s interesting that Craigslist’s New Orleans site has turned up as a central venue for disaster communication, since it’s not one of Craigslist’s more active sites. Craigslists in some other big U.S. cities have many times more traffic; the New Orleans one is still building. Nevertheless, Craigslist seems to come to people’s minds for this type of information sharing.
Another new Web site also popped up after the hurricane struck, specifically for the purpose of aiding survivors and their families: hurricanekatrinasurvivors.com. That site had seen several hundred postings at this writing. (The site appeared to be overloaded with traffic and often was unreachable.)
Local New Orleans media Web sites also are being used for such communication. New Orleans’ principal daily newspaper, the Advanced-owned Times-Picayune (which has been forced out of its building due to the flooding), has published hundreds of messages on its site from people in the “Town Hall Forum” areas, and other help messages have been published in the NOLA View blog by Jon Donley.
Likewise, New Orleans TV station Web sites are being used for disaster information sharing. At WWL-TV, a discussion forum has been established for missing-person reports and requests, and hundreds of posts have been recorded so far.
WDSU-TV’s Web site is offering an area for survivors to let friends and relatives know they are OK, and for people to request information about the missing.
Local newspapers have been the de facto community hub for years; their Web sites should, in theory, be the central gathering place in times of disaster. Yet their grasp of this position appears to be slipping.
“Craigslist has become the de facto standard site for ‘wanted’ lists — lost and found people, and housing requests and offers,” says Peter M. Zollman, an online media consultant and classifieds expert who has been closely following Craigslist’s impact on the newspaper classifieds industry.
Had this disaster befallen a city where the local Craigslist is more widely used than it is in New Orleans, it likely would be by far the most-chosen site for disaster information sharing. Craigslist has a strong public-service mission, so this sort of role fits it well. The company’s management team has demonstrated a core commitment to serving the public, rather than making lots of money.
If news organizations wish to retain the role of community gathering place, they might consider beefing up their preparedness for local disasters. Think about redesigning news Web sites with the lessons of Hurricane Katrina in mind. If a disaster the scale of Katrina struck your community, how would your news Web site best help the victims, their friends and relatives outside the disaster zone, and people willing to volunteer? How could it be designed to do a better job than Craigslist?
That’s a site-design problem to be solved before the next disaster strikes.
