Google’s Crisis Response Map for Hurricane Sandy, which has been updated systematically with information about power outages, traffic advisories and emergency shelters in the wake of the storm, has now published satellite imagery illustrating the magnitude of devastation Sandy wrought on coastal communities in New Jersey and Maryland. Read More
Many businesses and organizations in New York are suffering without electricity following yesterday’s devastating hit from Hurricane Sandy. With electrical and tech equipment down across the city, there’s a need for capable engineers to help get New Yorkers back to being plugged in. Today, the New York Tech Meetup and New Work City published a sign-up form for volunteers hoping to use their tech skills to help out a neighbor.
“NY Tech Meetup and New Work City are organizing volunteers with technology skills to help New York-area businesses and organizations get their technology back up and running after Hurricane Sandy,” reads the signup form. The team is currently organizing a database of willing volunteers and then will decide from there how to allocate help. Read More
As New York awakens to the structural devastation wrought by the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, many–especially in lower Manhattan–are waking to power and Internet outages. Some cell phone carriers also appear to be experiencing issues, making it difficult to place phone calls or send text messages. Read More
On the East Coast in particular, news of Hurricane Sandy has largely dominated social media channels, including Twitter, Reddit and–of course–Facebook. In fact, a rep for Facebook has sent Betabeat some statistics that show just how intense the chatter on the platform has been over the last few days. Read More
As soon as word of Hurricane Sandy began to spread, Reddit immediately sprung into action, creating the r/Sandy subreddit which now boasts over 3,000 readers. The forum is full of pictures of storm damage, eery tips and of course memes. But one particular post caught our eye: a Redditor named KillerKittenMittens created a site that may be helpful to those attempting to communicate messages about Sandy to the web should their wifi or cell phone data plans go out. Read More
Leave it to New York’s chattering tech class: in the middle of one of the worst storms New York has seen, techies are taking to their Twitter accounts to live-tweet the ensuing madness. Foursquare cofounder Dennis Crowley has been tweeting and retweeting dispatches about the storm since yesterday, establishing himself as an important source on East Village hurricane news. Meanwhile, Business Insider’s Henry Blodget has taken the #slatepitches tact. Below are some of our favorite hurricane tweets. Read More
With the East Coast largely barricaded inside their homes burning through hastily assembled stockpiles of cookies and liquor, there’s one thing left to do: make memes. (For as long as the power stays on, anyway.) The storm already has a dedicated page on Know Your Meme, and it seems parody accounts are cropping up by the second.
Click through for a roundup of hurriedly created hurricane-related memes, from the dedicated jokes to the special editions of old Internet standbys.
Instacane, a website that aggregates images posted to Instagram with hashtags related to Hurricane Sandy, is back up and running. Created last year by New York Times R&D software architect Peter Ng and now-Facebook engineer Chris Ackermann to chronicle images of Hurricane Irene, it’s been flooded once more by people snapping their way through Hurricane Sandy. The site has quickly become a visual portfolio of a dangerous hurricane that’s said to be barreling straight for New York and New Jersey. Read More
A lot of startups are letting their employees work from home for the next few days because of hurricane Sandy. That’s all swell news, but those members of New York’s tech scene who were supposed to go out and party or sit through conferences are screwed. Tech events are getting cancelled left and right, though some scene luminaries don’t seem to mind.
AllThingsD’s “D: Dive Into Mobile” conference has been postponed until a later date that will be announced as soon as possible. The event had originally been set for tomorrow and Tuesday in New York City. If you booked a room at the Ritz Carlton (looking at you, VC’s), the hotel is apparently giving full refunds and waiving cancellation fees. Speakers like Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy and Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, will just have to wait until another day to make their speeches. Read More
With mass transit closed and dangerous storm surges set to wallop the city, New York startups aren’t messing around when it comes to hurricane prep. Most, like Usablenet, Kickstarter, HowAboutWe and SideTour, are urging employees to work from home due to the closure of the MTA system.
“We have a simple rule of thumb that if the subways are shut down, the office is closed and people can work from home,” Onswipe CEO Jason Baptiste told Betabeat over email. “A few of us are actually crashing here over the weekend – myself and a few engineers. We built the place to be like a home, so it’s a great place to be stuck for a few days .”
“For those that are staying here, we have ample food, beverage, and entertainment. More iPads than flashlights,” he added.
