The American Red Cross reported today that people are more frequently using social networks like Facebook and Twitter, along with mobile devices and online news outlets, to monitor storm tracks, seek help and spread news about their own conditions.

"Social media is becoming an integral part of disaster response," Wendy Harman, director of social strategy for the American Red Cross, said in a written statement. "During the record-breaking 2011 spring storm season, people across America alerted the Red Cross to their needs via Facebook. We also used Twitter to connect to thousands of people seeking comfort and safety information to help get them through the darkest hours of the storms."

Just this week, as an earthquake shook the East Coast from Georgia to Maine. Before information about the quake hit even online news sites, people were reporting the tremors on Twitter and posting updates on Facebook.

People also were after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan this past March. For instance, Online Social Media, a company that tracks social networks, reported that an hour after the quake hit Japan, Twitter users were posting 1,200 tweets every minute.

And people dealing with the wreckage left behind by a series of tornadoes in the U.S. South this spring turned to Facebook in the storms.