Typhoon Ruby has already made a landfall in our country. Based on recent data gathered by PAGASA, Ruby’s maximum wind strength is 120 kph near the center and gustiness of up to 150 kph. In the next 3 hours as of this writing, Metro Manila and nearby provinces are in Public Storm Warning Signal #2. It is expected to be out of Philippine Area of Responsibility by Thursday morning.
Ruby brings a lot of risk to people living in affected areas. It can potentially injure or kill people, and can bring light to moderate damage to the exposed communities.
Facebook and Google launched several tools to aid people to inform the status of people in affected areas. Facebook launched #Ruby2014 Safety Check page while Google put up a People Finder page and embeddable code.
Facebook’s Safety Check
[button color=”blue” link=”https://www.facebook.com/safetycheck/ruby2014/” align=”center” target=”_blank”]Click to go to Safety Check[/button]
With Facebook’s Safety Check, you can easily mark yourself safe to let your friends know that you’re fine. You may also check on your friends thru the page provided that they tagged themselves safe or somebody tagged them.
Google’s People Finder
Apart from People Finder, Google also activated other resources for typhoon related information like Public Alerts, Google Crisis Map for Ruby and Crisis Landing Page.
Public Alerts provide real-time information pulled from PAGASA. It shows detailed information about the typhoon and provides precautionary measures. Crisis Map, more over, gives information about evac centers, shelters and the realtime tracking of the cyclone, which is expected to make a landfall for more 4 times until it leaves this Thursday.
Stay safe and dry, everyone!
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
