---
title: "Disaster Response and the Web in 2005: The Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina"
date: 2005-12-20
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2005"
    url: "/tag/2005.md"
---

# Disaster Response and the Web in 2005: The Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina

I’ve published a post [on ZDNet](https://web.archive.org/web/20060103200119/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=82) that details how the Web was used for good in 2005, in very bad situations. It was actually something I wrote for the book I’m working on with [Joshua Porter](https://web.archive.org/web/20060103200119/http://bokardo.com/), but it will almost certainly not be used (due to the book having a design focus). So I thought I’d share it with you now, because I learned a lot researching that extract.

> The most emotionally affecting memories of 2005 were the two huge natural disasters that struck the world – and how people responded to them. In this post I will review how the Web was utilized by thousands of people to help and to deal with those tragedies.
> 
> **The Tsunami**
> 
> When a magnitude 9.0 earthquake caused huge tsunami waves to hit coastal areas of south and east Asia [in late December 2004](https://web.archive.org/web/20060103200119/http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_Tsunami), the public response was one of shock and then emergency assistance on a global scale. It quickly became apparent that the Web was being used in response to the disaster in three main ways:
> 
> 1\) as a constantly updated source of news about the disaster;
> 
> 2\) as a way for ordinary people to respond emotionally;
> 
> 3\) and probably most importantly, to organize aid efforts. \[[Full story on ZDNet…](https://web.archive.org/web/20060103200119/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=82)\]

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/disaster_respon.php))*