Get Your Montgomery Co. Storm Updates from These Twitter Accounts

Stay safe. Stay inside. Stay informed.

The first two are on you. The last one is up to us reporters and scores of county and state employees working overtime. When Hurricane Sandy makes landfall in Maryland, the question on everybody's mind will be, "How is this storm affecting my neighborhood, my friends, and my family?"

That's where Twitter comes into play. It's the fastest tool for getting news as it happens—and there's bound to be quite a lot of that over the next week or so.

For official sources of information on Twitter, we recommend following:

• @mcpnews: Montgomery County Police Department
• @mcfrs: Montgomery County Fire & Rescue
• @MontgomeryCoMD: Montgomery County Office of Public Information
• @MDMEMA: Maryland Emergency Management Agency

For information on power outages, check out:

• @PepcoConnect: Pepco
• @MyBGE: BGE

For the latest weather info, try:

• @capitalweather: Capital Weather Gang, Washington Post
• @dougkammerer: Doug Kammerer, NBC Washington's chief meteorologist
• @MDWeather: Maryland Weather Blog, Baltimore Sun

Meanwhile, Patch reporters across the state are gearing up with the storm as we speak. Look for constant updates throughout the weekend as Sandy—a.k.a. the Frankenstorm—rolls in, particulary from these Montgomery County sites:

• @BethesdaPatch: Bethesda Patch
• @ChevyChasePatch: Chevy Chase Patch
• @ColesvillePatch: Colesville Patch
• @GburgPatch: Gaithersburg Patch
• @GermantownPatch: Germantown Patch
• @KensingtonPatch: Kensington Patch
• @MGVillagePatch: Montgomery Village Patch
• @NPotomacPatch: North Potomac-Darnestown Patch
• @PotomacPatch: Potomac Patch
• @RockvillePatch: Rockville Patch
• @SilvSpringPatch: Silver Spring Patch
• @TakomaParkPatch: Takoma Park Patch
• @WheatonPatch: Wheaton Patch

Finally, if you haven't signed up for Alert Montgomery yet, now's a good time to do so. The county's emergency warning system serves up vital information in a major crisis, emergency, or severe weather event through a variety of communication channels. For details, visit here.