Gustav: The power of social media LIVE

Watch what's going on around Hurricane Gustav and the power of social media for connecting news sources and "real" people on the ground.

Andy Carvin creates a Ning group for alerts and information. It includes the latest news, traffic cams, a twitter feed, and much more.

Here's the associated Facebook group.

Here's the main Twitter query feed and the GustavFeed set up by EngageJoe.

A Gustav wiki is built based on the Katrina wiki's format, with up to date information. From the site; "It's intended to be centralized site for links to information everywhere else on the web; please publicize it far and wide." It includes lists of aid agencies, helpline numbers, animal rescue info, even an IRC channel. And a list of relevant Twitter resources.

CNN's Rick Sanchez is on Twitter and on the case. He's freely quoting from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace messages during his newscasts on CNN (which I was watching for part of the afternoon) - as well as citizen journalist videos such as this one that I just found off the twitter feed.


Hurricane Gustav In my Back yard from Uway folife on Vimeo.

It goes without saying that all of this has come together in a matter of days (if not hours). Amazing. If I am ever in any kind of disaster, natural or otherwise, Twitter will be the first place I turn.