Tropical Storm #Flossie

Tropical Storm Flossie rolled through the islands on Monday, July 30, 2013. In preparation for this event, the State Civil Defense requested to activate the Hawaii VOST on Sunday, July 29, 2013 at 19:00. In the event of an emergency, the Hawaii VOST functions as the eyes and ears monitoring the various social media sites. These sites include, but not limited to, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, etc. It’s volunteers then gather tweets and posts which is then shared amongst emergency management organization for triage and action.

The Hawaii VOST’s primary activities during an emergency include:

• Helping to post and retweet information from verified sources regarding the emergency.
• Monitoring social media for incidents of distress, danger and system failures.
• Monitoring social media for erroneous reports, misinformation and rumors.

Participants in the Hawaii VOST logged into the incident workbook to post any information meeting the stated conditions.

Thankfully T.S. #Flossie was not as severe as anticipated and dissipated well before hitting Oahu. Maui and Hawaii Island saw severe lightning, wind and rain. As of this writing damage estimates were not available.

The Hawaii VOST will hold a debrief with State Civil Defense on Tuesday, Aug 6, 2013 to see what worked and how the process could be improved. The Hawaii VOST was generally viewed as having an important function during an emergency. A Big Mahalo goes out too all participants who spanned the globe from Germany, Colorado, Seattle and Hawaii, who helped keep Hawaii safe during T.S. Flossie.