Right now, Hurricane Sandy is chewing on the East coast and the weather service is in a frenzy to get all its predictors in a row and even Google is getting in on this with an interactive crisis map. Everyday citizens and very smart technical geeks are also in the path of this upcoming “Frakenstorm” and the #HurricaneHackers hashtag is organizing people involved in putting together technology and social media projects related to the hurricane and its effects.
If you’re interested in the project, take a look at this read-only Google doc currently covering their progress.
The project has already released a powerfully interesting crowdsourced Hurricane Sandy timeline done in Javascript—on this timeline you can find images as the hurricane’s effects unfold as well as short commentary along with the photographs. Very recently, the eye of the hurricane passed over Wilmington, DE; a blackout happened in Manhattan and a photographer captured it with a dark cityscape with Christmas-tree lit buildings in the background; and the MTA flooded Hugh L Carey Tunnel.
No doubt, as the storm progresses, there will be many more additions.
The document upkept by #HurricaneHackers is a goldmine of crowdsourced data grabbed from many different sources—and links to even more—all public and readily available to people seeking to be part of the project. Crowdsourced remixes similar to the one above could be a realtime news source for people watching the hurricane’s advance.
If you’re curious about live streams showing the storm in all its fury, check out this Google doc filled with such links.
Of course, reddit is also a brilliant source for everything ongoing (and oncoming) with r/sandy in full swing.
If you want to be part of #HurricaneHackers look at the Google docs linked above, follow the #HurricaneHackers hashtag, check out their IRC channel at irc.lc/freenode/hurricanehackers. This crisis and social event is not over yet and they could use more help with crowdsourced applications, links, and ways to use all the data coming in.
Picked up via Sasha Costanza-Chock’s Twitter feed.
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