Inside PBS Blog

In what NPR reported as "the largest evacuation since Katrina," KPBS News in San Diego has updated area residents on evacuation centers and fire containment with a Twitter account and a Google map in addition to a live radio stream.

With 140-character updates sent to Web, Instant Messenger, or mobile devices, the micro-blogging service Twitter proves its utility in emergency situations like the San Diego fires. At the time of this post, 880 Twitter users were following the KPBS News Twitter feed, which lists relevant emergency phone numbers, calls for volunteers, and, this afternoon, alerted users that the Google team was helping to update the Google map (which has received well over 1.1 million views).

Click here to see the San Diego Country Fires KPBS News Google map.

While "banal" is the adjective often levelled at micro-blogging--PBS MediaShift blogger Mark Glaser characterizes reviews of services like Twitter as "split between people who consider micro-blogging to be a breakthrough form of communication and people who think it's an annoying distraction and the ultimate form of navel-gazing"--the ability to spread small amounts of information widely and quickly can significantly increase safety in emergency situations and national disasters.

For more background, Bay Area station KQED's Quest recently produced a program on fire season and the history of fire management and Los Angeles station KCET has been aggregating a list of online sources of information about the fires.

Best wishes to the San Diego community and the exemplary KPBS News team that continues to broadcast from 94.9 FM (their usual 89.5 FM radio channel facilities were lost to fires on Mount San Miguel) and online.

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