In Case Of Emergency, Read Blog

I was reading FEMA nominee Craig Fugate’s Twitter feed yesterday and found an interesting Government Technology article he tweeted about in January that I had missed when it initially came out. According to the piece, “Governments Use Twitter For Emergency Alerts, Traffic Notices And More”:

When Twitter’s founders launched the service in 2006, they advertised it as a way to keep abreast of friends’ everyday lives. The idea of “tweeting” in short bursts about mundane details – “I’m watching Dancing with the Stars!” – may seem narcissistic, or pointless. But a loyal following has found novel and unexpected applications for the service. This movement includes government agencies, which are use Twitter for various functions, such as real-time alerts about emergencies, election results and even science projects.

The article discusses the use of Twitter by the Los Angeles Fire Department and Portland, Oregon Police Department as well as how other governmental entities have found unexpected uses for the technology:

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) updates its feed with traffic alerts and route changes for ferry vessels. But Twitter has a larger purpose for WSDOT: It helps continuity of operations, according to WSDOT spokesman Lloyd Brown. 

“In an emergency, people will come to our Web site, en masse to the point that it overwhelms our servers – we’ve had that happen during snowstorms and other major weather events,” Brown said. Because the Web site is a popular source of traffic updates, sometimes it can’t handle a spike in page hits, he said. During an emergency, WSDOT is considering the option of posting a bare-bones version of its Web site that contains a Web link to the Twitter feed.

The article notes that Twitter will have an impact on the distribution of government information to the public whether or not Twitter stays around:

Roanoke County, Va., started tweeting in October 2008, and the county’s IT department isn’t worried about how many citizens follow it because the investment is limited to a small investment of time – it takes 10 minutes to set up an account – and some planning for peripheral issues, like e-discovery. The county decided to back up its tweets and followers with an application called Tweetake.

“The question really would be, why not do Twitter?” asked Bill Greeves, the county’s IT director. “It is 140 characters, so granted, you are limited in the message you put on there. But we’re not creating content for Twitter; we’re creating content to send out a message to the public, and we’re just taking advantage of the latest and greatest channels available.” The beauty of it, Greeves said, is that if something better replaces Twitter or it all falls out of vogue, it won’t hurt the bottomline.