News Sites Offer Interactive Flood Coverage

Regional news websites are collaborating with their readers to provide comprehensive coverage of the recent floods in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register has created picture galleries where users are able to post their photos of the extensive flooding.

Residents are also able to contribute to a Google map indicating the severity of flooding across the state (at time of writing this map was down due to technical problems).

The Register has also created several non-interactive maps, including one which shows the evacuation zones for people living in the Des Moines flood plains.

Data editor James Wilkerson told Poynter Online: “We’ve been doing interactive maps like this for other, non-emergency situations, so it just struck us as an appropriate use for something we’d already developed.”

He added that the Register’s digital projects editor took about a day to produce the information maps from existing code.

Iowa’s (Cedar Rapids) Gazette has also deployed multimedia tools to report on the floods.

Its YouTube channel has videos with aerial shots of the rising waters as well as footage take from boats.

Further information on the Iowa floods coverage can be found at Poynter Online.