As Chennai lies submerged under unprecedented flooding by rains (a 100-year-record has been reportedly broken), its citizens are making the most out of social media to spread awareness and help each other even as corporation officials and the army undertake rescue operations.
On Tuesday evening, as the flood situation rose to dangerous levels, a few Twitter users decided to create a one-point source list that gave contact details of people who wanted to help by giving food or accommodation or both. The list, created on an open Google spreadsheet (people can freely add or remove details once they have the url), listed different tabs such as “Available for shelter”, “Food offerings”, “Rescue needed”, “Doctor helplines” and “Volunteer details”, replete with columns that were sorted alphabetically by the area name. What was more important perhaps was a column that mentioned a source link to where the request originated from (either a Facebook status, a Tweet or a mention of self-attestation).
At 6:18 PM yesterday, a Twitter user who goes by the handle @atlasdanced had first put out this tweet:
Any spreadsheet with crowdsourced info on areas where folks on twitter are stranded/areas where there are folks who've offered help+shelter?
— Spaceman Spiff (@atlasdanced) >December 1, 2015A subsequent conversation ensued where several users such as @sowmyarao_, @localteaparty, @shrinivassg and @weshnoo took it upon themselves to compile this sheet. They finally did.
>#CROWDSOURCED>#CHENNAIRAINS offer of help/shelter in >@Chennai . Pls add, and RT! Esp to local media if poss! >https://t.co/J42AIiQEb5
— Sowmya Rao (@sowmyarao_) >December 1, 2015Now the question was how was it going to cut through the clutter on all timelines? Through the hashtag #ChennaiRainsHelp.
>@sowmyarao_ please make it an open spreadsheet and ask ppl to contribute directly....maybe use >#ChennaiRainsHelp as hashtag
— Spaceman Spiff (@atlasdanced) >December 1, 2015It was made clear though that the hashtag would strictly be meant for offering news one could really put to use and not for anything frivolous about the weather condition:
Please note. Mark all your help tweets >#ChennaiRainsHelp . >https://t.co/UOpcsxMlIC
— Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) >December 1, 2015Soon enough with Twitter India’s help, the message was amplified. Some users, of course, faced hiccups while simultaneously editing the sheet (some could not add edits at all) but the hashtag managed to thrive. Media houses, celebrities and even local sport clubs took to it and did their crowdsourcing bit. Users offered to do any sort of task that would reduce frustrations of the stranded commuter by any amount: recharging mobile phone numbers, delivering food packets, sending out vehicle convoys, offering contacts of professional snake-catching services and throwing open extra space to provide temporary shelter.
A tweet asking people to add details to the public spreadsheet:
People in >#Chennai , add yr name here if you can offer shelter to people stranded in >#ChennaiRains>#ChennaiRainsHelp>https://t.co/Y8N9TbQDkx
— Vinay Kesari (@vinaykesari) >December 1, 2015Some offered to service vehicles if they were damaged in the rains:
We can help folks check their cars for damage using our doorstep services infra. Need some local garages to work together >#ChennaiRainsHelp
— Cartisan (@cartisanapp) >December 1, 2015RJ Balaji, a popular radio jockey and actor, did his myth-busting bit:
Guys.. Plz dont pass on random fwds. As that might create lot of choas, when there is thousands of them in desperate need. >#ChennaiRainsHelp
— RJ Balaji (@RJ_Balaji) >December 1, 2015Here’s a Tweet from the official Chennai Super Kings handle giving details of professional snake-catching services:
For snake catching rescues, please contact wild life biologist Nishant at 98-45-018969. >#Verified>#ChennaiRainsHelp
— Chennai Super Kings (@ChennaiIPL) >December 2, 2015According to Hashtracking, a website that allows exploring hashtag analytics, #ChennaiRainsHelp has been used more than 1,300,000 times on Twitter as of Wednesday evening.
Sowmya Rao, the Delhi-based lawyer who uses the Twitter handle @sowmyarao_, said this effort of building up the spreadsheet went on until about 2 AM on Wednesday. “Two of our friends of Twitter — @krtgrphr and @Vijaynarain — both based in the US took over the task of curating the spreadsheet from us at around 3 AM when all of us [here in India] went to bed,” said Ms. Rao over phone. By the time Ms. Rao had woken up, the spreadsheet which caused much editing trouble was given some tweaks and integrated into a full-fledged website, chennairains.org.
Ms. Rao over phone said that the biggest grouse the team had was the lack of response by the corporation officials or state officials on social media where the steam was visibly gathering. “We were groping in the dark for a while. We still do not know if areas like Ramapuram (where distress messages came from) were tended to or not, even after 6 hours.”
After a brief respite from the showers on Wednesday morning, rains were reported to have started again. Ms. Rao and her colleagues, meanwhile, have firmly pinned the website’s link as their timelines’ top tweet and are continuing the list-building task.
