29 July 2008

Fun with the USGS

Today was a work at home day. I can scarcely believe that some days I am lucky enough to get to work in my fatass yoga pants in my comfy Ikea Poang chair after rolling out of bed 15 minutes before the time I am due to start.

But I am, and so I was sitting in my Poang when it began to rock BOING BOING BOING. I looked around. Dog was on the couch. Ahhhhh......

EARTHQUAKE!

And just that fast, I hopped on my Mac and typed "EARTHQUAKE" into Twitter. Because I know what to do in case of emergency: social networking.

I probably wouldn't have thought of it, but in talking to Karoli on the way up to BlogHer, she mentioned that she gets a feed of tweets that mention earthquakes.

The tweets popped up fast and furious while I opened a new tab and typed in www.usgs.gov - I wanted to be the first to get the stats from the US Geological Survey. I first just had the map info, which looked like a 7.0 quake in San Diego county. I twittered that, then corrected a few seconds later: 5.8 epicentered near Chino Hills.

In 5 minutes, the twittosphere had spoken and everyone was ok. My cell phone didn't work. It took 10 minutes for our local news to break into programming and report. But Twitter did the job before anyone else could.

14 comments:

super des said...

Yay twitter!
I didn't hear about the quake til later, and at first I kinda freaked out because I know my sister is down there somewhere. But then I calmed down when I learned there were very few injuries and damages. Tame by CA standards.
Still, glad everyone's ok.

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah said...

Twitter kind of rules.

Miss Britt said...

I was so stinking excited about this Twitter thing. (Not about the earthquake, but after finding out everyone was OK and realizing what I'd just been a part of.)

Amy Urquhart said...

That was awesome, wasn't it? News is spread and virtual hands are held there. I love it. (And face it, experiencing an earthquake from home is way better than experiencing it from the office. Yet another reason working at home rocks.)

Project Christopher said...

wow, I guess I really need to look into this twitter thing. (feel like an old man saying that) My partner is an elementary school principal in the area of the earthquake and after I texted him (I do text at least!) and didn't get a response I gave him a quick call. his first words were "Never call an elementary school after an earthquake" I was apparently call #212..... All was well though :)

Kizz said...

Glad you're OK and that you were working from home. I've been at work during a couple of local disasters and I hate it.

Twitter is way more efficient than the local news!

ByJane said...

Twitter is great for calming the fears of those of us in N. CA

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LittlePea said...

Well I feel like a jackass because I didn't/don't know what Twitter is....

Anonymous said...

So glad it wasn't a biggie. But yes, I was amazed to see the tweets long before the news broke elsewhere.

Twitter is amazing. When it works.

Sister Wolf said...

Shit, am I missing out on something, Suebob? All I did was yell EARTHQUAKE and hang on to my desk.

Betsy Mae said...

I'm new to your blog and intrigued already. Wow, that is pretty amazing. I know what Twitter is but don't REALLY know what it is...must do a bit of googling.

Anonymous said...

Twitter is turning out to be an amazing communication tool for both large and small events.

Just the other day I learned that one of my husband's friends had died via local Twitters who happened to mention it. I didn't even know they knew him and vice versa.

Anonymous said...

This same thing happened with the earthquake near St. Louis a few months ago. It was a sight to behold.

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