What is your Social Media Emergency Management plan?
At around 2pm today, an Earthquake with an epicenter about 34 miles NW of Richmond, VA. 87 miles SW of DC. began felt as far north as #NYC and New Jersey.
While tens of thousands flocked to their cell phones and TV service, twitter spread the word to millions. Twitter had everything from people talking about the earthquake to news organizations using twitter to share the little info they had.
Fox News reported that they were having trouble reaching personal over the cell phones and had to turn to twitter for information.
The experience of the earthquake should signify the importance of a tool like twitter, it allows you to gather information and operates on a different bandwidth through data plans allowing others to communicate when the cell network becomes overwhelmed. Â
It’s time to revisit your states, county, business and family emergency communication plans, should you not be able to reach each other over the phone, do you have a twitter account on each phone for you, your employees and your children?
At the time of this publication at 2:36PM Fox News reporters in the field are reporting the biggest issue facing people is the communication breakdown. Even NBCNews was digging on twitter to find anything they could for news content.
It was also noted that two Nuclear Power plants where taken offline near the quakes. With Summer in full swing and brownouts not uncommon, it has to make you wonder what is your plan to keep the phones and tablets charged?
Perhaps it’s time for twitter accounts to have a dedicated plan for buildings and businesses to inform personal and employees about what is going on. It’s also not a bad idea to have a family plan to allow others to find out your OK.
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