By Susan Crabtree
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is urging families and individuals to incorporate social media elements into their natural disaster and emergency-preparedness plans in the wake of Tuesday’s 5.8 magnitude earthquake that rattled the East Coast.
FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate told reporters Wednesday that Tuesday’s earthquake demonstrated an over-reliance on cell phones during an emergency.
Mobile networks were overburdened in the immediate aftermath of the quake as people tried to reach out to family and friends to check in on their safety.
Cell phone texting, however, remained unaffected and quickly became a popular alternative to phone calls in the first hour after the earthquake.
Fugate endorsed texting as an effective alternative, but also urged individuals to incorporate social media outlets, such as Twitter and Facebook, in their family or individual disaster plans.
Tuesday’s cell phone breakdown show that “mobile phone devices are good tools, but they shouldn’t be the only tool,” Fugate told reporters during a conference call focused on FEMA preparations for Hurricane Irene, which is expected to hit the Carolinas Saturday.
Fugate said his wife was able to text him a message letting him know she was safe. He then posted an update on his Facebook page to let his extended family know they were both all right.
“We kind of had that as our back-up plan,” he said. “Cell systems and any type of system you have, you’re gonna have congestion in the immediate aftermath of an earthquake or other disaster…there’s just a lot of people trying to reach out… Not being able to communicate with loved ones [after such an event] can be very distressing.”
FEMA, he said, had backup cell phone and communications systems so its response was not affected by the mobile network congestion.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission’s Chairman Julius Genachowski sent us the following statement late Tuesday:
“Today’s earthquake caused significant disruption to cell service in the affected area.
The FCC is in contact with the relevant carriers. We are also conducting a thorough assessment of the outages to determine appropriate next steps to improve communications services during emergencies.”
Sarah Lai Stirland contributed to this report.
