“The times they are a-changin’”.

There has been a noticeable and inevitable push in emergency management to encourage and support the power of the community during response and recovery, utilise crowdsourcing for information, harness the muscle of social media in crisis communication, and to create better interoperability amongst the various agencies and charities involved in a disaster. An extraordinarily successful and unique Facebook page was run during the Tasmanian Bushfires of 2013 that can provide a number of answers, lessons and solutions to these issues and ideas; providing guidelines for new ways of coping in and dealing with catastrophes both nationally and internationally. This talk outlines the history of the fires, telling the story of how social media was utilised successfully during the initial crisis, as well as in the immediate and ongoing recovery. It discusses a number of topics, such as the main roles of the Facebook page, its reach and audience, the problems that were being solved, the gaps it filled, how the volunteers collaborated with emergency services, why and how the page “worked”, the risks involved, the significance of creating trust and how to develop it, other Web 2.0 technologies that can and have been used in other disaster around the world, the importance of language and communication styles, and exactly how social media can be used successfully in future disasters in Australia, as the benefits far outweigh the risks. An extremely practical executive summary is provided for both emergency management agencies and community groups to assist with communication strategies and information gathering in future emergencies.