The December 2010 North American blizzard will be remembered for many things: 5-foot-high snowdrifts, 50-mph winds, a super-rare "thundersnow" occurrence and the utter immobilization of New York City. The City That Never Sleeps has been transformed into a giant ski town.
Epic weather aside, the blizzard represents a snow-covered milestone marking the ever-growing role and utter centrality of social media and web-based tools in our lives, especially in times of crisis.
While New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vacationed in Disney World, Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, raced around his blighted and beleaguered city delivering diapers to stranded mothers, providing aid to women in labor and personally lifting cars out of the snow -- all while subsisting on Diet Coke and Advil.
We know this because Booker, among the premier young superstars of the Democratic party, tweeted his exploits to more than a million followers. But Hizzoner wasn't just showing off, even if his skillful use of social media demonstrates a level of public-relations savvy that is, frankly, lacking among some of his fellow northeastern politicos.
Rather, Booker was using Twitter to communicate directly with tens of thousands of stranded constituents. He repeatedly asked the good people of Newark to DM him (Direct Message, for you Luddites) their phone numbers if they had problems.
We've seen no end of committed public servants in pre-Twitter American history, but never has a public official been able to communicate with -- and respond to -- constituents so effectively during a crisis of such magnitude.
There is a veritable, uh, blizzard of classic Booker Snowmageddon tweets to choose from, but this one has to take the cake:
And while en route from one crisis to another, Booker took time to wax philosophical about the larger lessons to be drawn from the storm.
Booker's last tweet on Monday night came at roughly 3 a.m. Tuesday morning. By 8 a.m., fortified by Diet Coke and Advil, Booker was tweeting again, and racing around the city with his team helping people. The Newark mayor even responded to one New Yorker who tweeted a sentiment shared by many.
New York, in fact, already has a mayor, and he could be found issuing such helpful Tweets as:
But Booker's Twitter clinic wasn't the only innovative use of social and web-based media during the Snowmageddon of December 2010.
By Tuesday morning, tech-savvy citizens were using Ushahidi, a crowdsourced mapping tool, to collect reports of various problems around New York.
Snowmageddon Clean-Up: New York had more than 100 reports by midday Tuesday, detailing such issues as: "Multiple elders on this block as well as a disabled young adult. Should an emergency arise, the City will have a lawsuit on their hands." And: "Entire apartment complex snowed in. We cant get out. running out of food..." (That one's from Highlands, New Jersey, but you get the, uh, drift.)
This map shows the location of the various problems being reported around the city.
We're looking for the craziest photos and stories from Snowmageddon 2010, so send 'em to: wiredphotos@yahoo.com.
Follow us for disruptive tech news: Sam Gustin and Epicenter on Twitter.
Photo credit: Brian Elmquist
See Also:
- Twitter - Wired How-To Wiki
- Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense
- Mob Rule! How Users Took Over Twitter
- Twitter Working to Thwart China, Iran Censors
- Weak Ties, Twitter and Revolution
- Ushahidi & The Unprecedented Role of SMS in Disaster Response - Haiti Rewired
- Snowmageddon Site Crowdsources Blizzard Cleanup
