"Stormy Weather: Lightning" by Sabrina Campagna on Flickr."
EDIT: A direct message from MLGW on Twitter requested that we change the headline to reflect that they weren’t aiming for attention, but rather that they were just trying to help. That’s the main point of this story, so we’re happy to comply. (Once again, thanks for the good work, MLGW!)
Severe weather tore through Memphis Friday, June 12. The weather knocked out the transmitter for the local public radio station, and the digital television switch ensured that anyone left without a converter box couldn’t rely on local television for breaking weather news (and several thousand Memphians were left without power anyway). So where did people turn for the news?
They turned to cell phone-friendly microblogging service Twitter.
When the storms hit, even local news turned to Twitter for information about how people were faring. The Commercial Appeal was the only news source actively tweeting during the event, though its news was scant at first (it’s hard to tweet from a cell phone in a basement with neither WiFi nor cell service), but once they got out of the basement, the main source that the CA was using was the suddenly very active Twitter stream of Memphis Light, Gas, and Water.
MLGW, over the course of about 72 hours from early Friday evening to mid-morning Monday, sent out over 880 tweets, mostly either @replies or information directly relating to the outages. Only the people at MLGW know how many direct messages they sent, but judging from how many times they told people to check their DMs, it’s up there around that 880 mark.
And though their followers have drastically increased (1,265, up from around 400 early Friday evening), what really sets their tweeting apart is that they haven’t changed their tactic: responding to every customer question possible.
