Posted by Ryan Falor, Crisis Response Product Manager (Cross-posted from the Google.org blog) Joplin Tornado, Joplin, MO, USA, May 2011 25 percent of the town was destroyed and 75 percent damaged, we still saw search traffic at 58 percent of normal levels the day of the tornado, and an immediate recovery toward normal Internet traffic occured within a day of the event.Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, LA, USA, August 2005 topped search queries while search queries for resource providers like FEMA and the American Red Cross grew the fastest, according to our data. Even as 90% of the population was evacuated from New Orleans, we still saw search traffic at more than 50 percent of normal in Louisiana and 20% of normal in New Orleans, based on the previous five-day average.Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, Northern Coast, Japan, March, 2011 topped the list of most searched queries across Japan. In fact, even in the hardest hit areas, where mobile and landline communications were disrupted , Internet services were largely unaffected. During this time, people entered 620,000 records into Google Person Finder , a tool developed by the Google Crisis Response team to help people find missing friends and loved ones in the aftermath of such disasters.Chile Earthquake, Maule Chile, February 2010 Immediately following the earthquake, people searching online were actively looking for earthquake information; earthquake and news source search terms became eight of the top 10 queries. [Terremoto] was the most searched term, and two online news sources, Terra and Emol, and the National Office for Emergencies [onemi] also appeared as top keywords. While there was no search traffic for 15 minutes after the earthquake, within one day searches had recovered to 25 percent of normal traffic, and search traffic returned to pre-earthquake levels within just four days.Haiti Earthquake, Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, January 2010 The month of the Haiti earthquake, [seisme]—or “earthquake”—was the fastest-growing search term , and it continued its surface as a frequently searched term for almost two months after the earthquake. In the capital city of Port-Au-Prince, at the center of the earthquake, search traffic stopped momentarily, but did not completely disappear even when the three submarine Internet cables were cut as a result of the earthquake. As outlined by this U.S. Department of Homeland Security Communications Summary , Internet Service Providers were able to quickly reroute connections through a microwave relay wireless communication between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. This allowed traffic to return to rise within one day, and reach normal levels within a few months, despite ongoing damage to the city and country’s infrastructure.
Fascinating! Thanks for the interesting analysis. I wounder how diffident would be a similar analysis about land lines or some other form of communication. The unique component of the web its ease of disseminating information - 911 and the official response community should capitalize on this trend and be ready to communicate using the internet.
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