After 911, Facebook Is Top Choice for Disaster Response

If anyone out there thinks social networks are a transient phenomenon, those doubts should be put to rest by the results of a survey of 1,058 U.S. adults conducted July 22-23 by Infogroup on behalf of the American Red Cross about where they would go for to contact emergency responders during a disaster if they couldn't call 911.

While the findings should be viewed with caution (as an online survey, it obviously skews towards the Web savvy) they provide more evidence that social networks have become an integral -- and trusted -- part of everyday life, like telephones and emails before them. Almost half (44%) of the respondents said they would ask other people on their social networks to contact emergency responders on their behalf if they couldn't call 911 themselves; 35% said they'd post a request for help directly on a response agency's Facebook page; 28% would send a direct Twitter message to responders. A full 70% said emergency responders should monitor social media sites, and half said emergency responders are probably already doing so. One-fifth said they post eyewitness accounts during emergencies.