The Philippines is harnessing the power of Twitter to help fix road damage around the country.
The Department of Public Works and Highways is asking Filipino citizens to tweet photos and locations of road damage caused by a recent typhoon. Tweets must include the official Twitter handle for the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office (@PCDSPO) and the hashtag #lubak2normal. The messages are then plotted on Google maps along with the status of the request.
The department of public works has logged more than 300 requests so far.
Since Friday, Typhoon Sanba has drenched the Philippines and damaged more than 10,000 homes and displaced at least 400 people.
In 2009 San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom used Twitter to encourage citizens to tweet road issues. The city partnered with SeeClickFix, a web tool, to track how many road work tweets were sent. The tool has collected more than 1,700 road work reports and comments for San Francisco to date.
Prolific Twitter user and Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker also used Twitter in June to help find and fill holes in his city identified by its residents.
Photo by Alan Stanton/Flickr
