Turning to social media following the tornado

May 23, 2011|by Kara Sewell | KWCH 12 Eyewitness News

(WICHITA, Kan.) — Saturday's tornado moved through Reading, Kansas around 9:15pm, not long after the EF3 tornado destroyed most of the city, a Facebook page emerged.

And in forty-eight hours more than one-thousand people joined the "Reading tornado" group, with posts offering condolences, searching for friends and sharing stories.

But personal stories aren't the only things being shared. Wichita's Red Cross says and the Salvation Army tell us social media is a vital source used to get information to the public.

A spokesperson for Red Cross says their agency has been on Twitter constantly since the storm broke out in an attempt to relay correct information to people and weed the wrong out.

Red Cross says typically a tweet with accurate information is re-tweeted more than sixty times while inaccurate tips are re-tweeted only a handful.

But even that small percentage takes high priority.

Red Cross' national office has a social media team whose job it is to look for misinformation on Facebook, Twitter and blogs then work to correct it.

Local relief agencies say they also rely on people to re-tweet or re-post their messages allowing people across the country to get the most up to date information at a time when its most important.

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