Tweeting in an emergency


Written by Phil on February 27, 2009 in Crisis Management and Crisis Communication, disaster preparedness, Emergency Response.

You hear about social networking all over the place: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, blogging. Your kids are doing it. Your neighbors are doing it. Maybe your parents are doing it.

But now even public agencies are discovering the benefits of the social networking craze to not only gather and disseminate information, but to help build trust among citizens who’ve become all too cynical in the face of government failures.


Twitter founders Biz Stone, left, and Evan Williams pose for a photo at their office in San Francisco,  Jan. 29, 2009. Twitter Inc. revolves around riffing in messages limited to 140 keystrokes. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu

FEMA has a page on YouTube.com with several videos on various programs. The Los Angeles City Fire Department has a Twitter page and a blog where citizens can get updates on fires in the city, big and little. The Rhode Island and Washington State departments of transportation use Twitter to send out traffic alerts.

As Matt Williams, assistant editor for the Government Technology site, noted in a Jan. 7, 2009, article, Twitter, in particular, seems to leave no middle ground: Either you can’t live without it or you don’t get it (though there are plenty of folks who get it, but hate it nonetheless).

See Tweeting in an emergency.

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