How to use Social Media in the Flood Evacuation in West Kelowna

This from CHBC Okanagen:

UPDATE: 4:15 - After assessing McDougall Creek near Hitchner Road the Central Okanagan Emergency Operations has reinstated the Local State of Emergency in the District of West Kelowna. Emergency and district operations personnel will keep a close watch in the coming hours. West Kelowna Fire Rescue is reminding the public to keep clear of fast-flowing waterways at this time of freshet.

via CHBC Okanagan | UPDATE: State of Emergency reinstated in West Kelowna, Kimberley homes on evacuation alert.

This post will show you  some of the most effective ways to use social media to see what’s happening on the ground, share information with your community and collaborate effectively.

Find Out What’s Happening:

1. Search Twitter for keywords that relate to the event.   For instance you can search for Floods or area like Kelowna.
2. Check the Ayoudo Social Media Flood page.
3. Find related hashtags on twitter.  Hashtags are used in twitter to tie related conversations together.  So for this sitation, the most common hashtag is #kelowna.
4. Search for photos and videos of the event using keywords.  Good aggregators of this material include  Youtube, Flickr, twitpic, twipho, twicsy, ustream and picfog.

Share Information With Your Community:

1. Use Facebook to set up or find a page.  Existing pages can often be found through Twitter links or by searching Facebook.  If a page doesn’t exist you can set one up here.  When you set up a page be sure to include links to other social media support resources.
2. Share your Facebook group with your Facebook friends or others via email so that people have a central place to share information
3. Use Google to plot hotspots.
4. Upload photos you have that can be helpful to Flickr (recommended) , twitpic or Instagram. Use the hashtags you’ve found in Twitter to tag your photos.
5. Upload videos you have that can be helpful to Youtube (recommended)  or Vimeo. Use the hashtags you’ve found in Twitter to tag your videos.
6. If the emergency is a news event then update the news item posted on Wikipedia with the latest resources.

Help & Act:

1. Put any requests for help into Ayoudo.  Include the hashtags you’ve found in Twitter in the description.  Set the price to ‘zero’.  Share the help request with your friends, through Facebook and  Twitter.
2. Search for people who need help by searching for the hashtag or location in Ayoudo.
3. Write a 2 paragraph description of the emergency detailing the affected places and list of resources available to those who want to help.  Email this message to local bloggers, the local media, and Ayoudo at social@ayoudo.com