Natural Disasters and Twitter

This past week TWO natural disasters hit Virginia: an earthquake and a hurricane. I had not experienced either before, so it was quite an exciting weekend!



I find this picture hilarious!
This was pretty much the extent of the damage.

First, the earthquake. I was not expecting this at all. I was sitting in the living room of my apartment with two friends when suddenly the apartment began to shake. At first it just sounded like someone started a dryer on the floor above us, but then the shaking got worse and it felt like the building was going to collapse! We ran outside to avoid getting crushed beneath a pile of rubble. Later we found out that this is NOT what you're supposed to do during an earthquake. Apparently you're supposed to stand in doorways because they're the sturdiest part of the house. Anyway, we stood outside for a few minutes, but the shaking had stopped and nothing was happening, so we went back inside and turned on the news.

The funny thing is, most people didn't turn to the news on TV, or even the internet. I found out later that some people who use Twitter found out about the earthquake before it hit their area. Twitter has even used this in a new ad. Twitter: faster than an earthquake. The earthquake didn't end up doing much damage, although I heard it put a few cracks in the Washington Monument. But it's interesting to hear that a lot of people got breaking news from social media. When I think about it, there have been times when I found out about something significant through facebook. When some big event is happening, facebook tends to be dominated by posts about it. I've actually learned a lot about whatever's going on by logging into facebook.

I like this blogger's post about using Twitter for up-to-date news: Jenful.com

The hurricane damage was much worse than the earthquake. I went to Harrisonburg for the weekend to visit Tristan and to escape the potential flooding, power outages, etc that were supposed to occur in Richmond. Luckily the damage here wasn't too bad. Some trees and power lines are down, and some people have lost power for a few days, but other places got hit much, much worse. Here are some pictures of some serious damage in various areas on the East coast.

25 Frightening Photos Of Hurricane Irene’s Destruction