Hurricane Sandy prompts surge of photo sharing

Nature's fury prompted a surge in online photo sharing Monday, according to photo-sharing social network Instagram.

Users have been sharing photos from Hurricane Sandy at a rate of nearly 10 each second, according to the Instagram blog. Instagram, which Facebook bought in April, has more users than Twitter, with 7.3 million daily users, according to ComScore.

Most users are tagging storm photos with the hashtags #hurricanesandy, #sandy and #frankenstorm. Many of those Instagram users are the same reporters spotted standing out in the elements in various locations down the East Coast, but plenty of other photos posted on the platform are from people dwelling in the path of the storm. With the width of the storm estimated at 900 miles, a huge number of people felt the effects and rushed to document the storm's impact.

Photos are not verified, and several compelling but manipulated images have already gone viral and then been debunked Monday.

The Atlantic, among others, did some fact checking of the images floating around on Monday.

A few members of Congress shared photos on Monday as well, but most from inside evacuation centers, and few used Instagram. 

Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.), though, shared a shot of the view from Plum Island, Mass.

View from Plum Island. #MASandy twitter.com/RepTierney/sta…

— Rep. John Tierney (@RepTierney) October 29, 2012

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