Hurricane Sandy propels emergency apps to top of App Store

It's difficult to determine just how useful your iPhone could be in an emergency situation until that circumstance descends upon you. In the last 48 hours, millions of people living along the East Coast have looked to their smartphones for a bit of assistance and nowhere is this more apparent than on the App Store. TechCrunch noticed today that three of the top six free apps on the marketplace are tools that could prove useful for those in Hurricane Sandy's path.

The Red Cross Hurricane app has rocketed up the charts to the number two spot, followed immediately by a top-rated flashlight app. Then, in the number six spot is The Weather Channel app. Further down the list you can find yet another flashlight app, and a second hurricane tracker.

To reshuffle the top of the free charts -- which is normally occupied by Facebook and free game apps -- these apps have to be getting some serious download numbers. We can only hope they are making life a bit easier for those still feeling the effects of Sandy.