Local Emergency Information A Tweet Away

Keep tabs on all of Patch's statewide Irene coverage on our Facebook page.

In the wake of this week’s earthquake and with Hurricane Irene barreling toward the Maryland coastline, state and county emergency management offices are on high alert to get important information out to the public.

Armed with social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter, government officials across the state are reaching out to people like never before while also sticking to traditional media outlets to get their messages out.

“One of the bedrock functions of Emergency Management is being able to communicate with the public,” said Mark Hubbard, director of the Baltimore County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. “There are so many options available. We’ve got to push out messages through as many different channels as possible so that there is something for everyone.”

Hubbard said that the agency’s Internet posts and its Twitter feed, which has 1,000 followers, are meant to reach a broad audience.

However, information is also simultaneously being broadcast through traditional media outlets like cable TV.

“The media has done a phenomenal job with getting information out quickly,” Hubbard said. “That helps to reduce the burden on the system in terms of people calling 911 to call and ask, ‘Hey, what was that?’”

In addition to Baltimore County, similar social networking activities are being utilized by the Howard County Executive’s Office; other Maryland counties have also posted emergency preparedness information along with headlines about the quake and the storm on their county websites.

Edward McDonough, spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, says that each county has its own formula for getting out information to the public.

Meanwhile, MEMA has its own Facebook page along with a news feed on its website and a Twitter account with nearly 2,000 followers.

One of most recent agency Tweets announced that Gov. Martin O’Malley declared the hurricane conditions a state of emergency.

“We’re certainly trying to integrate more of the newer technology but we also want to recognize our vulnerable populations,” McDonough said. “We are trying to reach the broadest range as possible with the most methods as possible.”

He added that if there is one thing that the agency learned from the earthquake — it’s not to rely on cell phone use.

“We had a devil of a time to trying to contact people because of the cell phone blockage,” McDonough said. He urges people to limit calls to emergencies only in such a situation.

“Call a relative on the landline.... The cell phone system in this country is not robust enough to handle that kind of traffic... We urge people to shorten up their conversations until the disaster is past enough for the cell phone use to keep up with call levels.”

At the national level, FEMA has been posting Internet video updates on Hurricane Irene while theNational Weather Service has put together weather podcasts.