A tornado that formed during the hurricane ripped a section of roof from an apartment complex in Long Branch. Local towns turned to social media to provide residents with up-to-the-minute information on conditions during Hurricane Irene.
Social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter were used effectively to communicate with residents by towns, including Eatontown, where Laurie Gavin, assistant to the administrator, updated the borough’s Facebook page every few hours to provide residents with information they needed to stay safe. Gavin informed the community about the storm’s path and progress, the location of shelters and whether they were open or full, and provided phone numbers for Jersey Central Power & Light and the borough Public Works Department.
Residents responded with gratitude.
“Thank you for keeping us safe and informed,” a resident commented on Eatontown’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/boroughofeatontownnj.
Workers assess damage caused by Hurricane Irene, including a downed utility pole near the beachfront on Aug. 28. PHOTOS BY ERIC SUCAR staff Gavin also responded to comments or questions from residents during the storm. According to Anthony Talerico Jr., Borough Council president, Gavin led the charge for the borough to become a part of the social networking scene.
“I just thought it was the best way to bring information to the residents,” Gavin said.
Gavin said that during last winter’s snowstorms, the borough had started updating the website more regularly and decided to branch out.
“Most people have Facebook and Twitter, and just by “liking” us or just by liking the borough of Eatontown on Facebook, they can get the information immediately. They don’t have to go out and seek it, it’s just sent to them,” she said.
Gavin, who is in charge of maintaining the borough Facebook and Twitter pages, tries to update daily, Monday through Friday .
“Weekends are mainly for emergencies,” Gavin said.
She said that the Facebook page is not just for the administration but for the whole community. She tries to update information about local events and meetings throughout the town.
“If there are any community groups who want us to share their information with the residents, I would welcome them to submit their information,” Gavin said.
Other towns say they are planning to capitalize on the effective communication provided by these social media tools.
In Ocean Township, plans for incorporating Facebook and Twitter are currently in progress.
“We are going to make upgrades to our website in the fall and we will be including Facebook and Twitter,” Andrew Brannen, township administrator, said.
During the storm, updates were provided on the township website.
Brannen also said the Ocean Township Police Department posted updates on Nixle, a notification system used by law enforcement agencies that is similar to Twitter.
The police department updated the site daily, informing residents of impending evacuations and closed roads. Each update was given an alert or advisory warning.
Brannen said the borough’s Facebook and Twitter page would be the responsibility of an employee in the administrative office.
Long Branch does not use social media to communicate with residents; rather, the decision was made to use the CodeRED phone alert system.
Long Branch Business Administrator HowardWoolley Jr. said he is pleased with how CodeRED worked during the hurricane.
“It worked pretty good; we got a blast out there to everyone in the Chamber of Commerce,” he said in an interview last week. “I don’t know the total number of calls we made, but it worked well.”
He said one of the things that made CodeRED successful was that the city can target specific areas of the city to send out alerts.
“It’s been configured so that we can target a specific area,” Woolley said. “So we input the streets north of Atlantic Avenue and said there was a mandatory evacuation and put phone calls out to all those people.”
In addition to using CodeRED, the city sent police officers door to door to make sure people evacuated and had someone handle the main phone number and emergency management number at all times during the storm, Woolley said.
After a blizzard of complaints from residents about the lack of information during the winter snowstorms, the borough of Oceanport made it a priority to improve communications as Hurricane Irene rained down on the Jersey Shore.
Oceanport Mayor Michael Mahon said that while the borough used traditional methods of communications, such as the borough website and CodeRED phone alerts, new media was also used as a way to get messages out.
“The CodeRED messages we used for the evacuations, but at the same time we made a huge connection with the Oceanport Residents’Facebook page,” he said in an interview last week. “One of the administrators on that is Councilman [Joseph] Irace, but it literally doubled in friends.”
Mahon said he also posted the information on the mayor’s Facebook and Twitter pages.
Information released by Emergency Management Coordinator Mauro “Buzz” Baldanza would go through the borough website and all Twitter and Facebook channels.
“That was a great exchange of information,” Mahon said. “We had something like 80 tweets during the event that were going out, and so we are channeling the information through a variety of resources.”
The Oceanport Residents’ Facebook page currently has 754 members with residents able to ask questions, post information and upload pictures.
During the storm, Irace posted pictures, sent out warnings, tracked the storm as it headed up the coast, and interacted with residents.
After the storm, numerous residents thanked the borough for the open lines of communication.
Another change made during the storm was that the OEM section of the borough website became the borough’s homepage.
“What we did was we had our webmaster take the emergency management page and make it the home page a day in advance of the storm,” Mahon said. “We were able to make that the page [the home page] when you click on Oceanport, and the emergency management coordinator could update that page independent of the webmaster.”
Because technology continues to evolve, when the power went out, residents could still be updated on road conditions and storm information, he said.
“It was pretty interesting how the residents responded to it, and the only time we ran into difficulties was when you had power outages that prevented people from getting information,” Mahon said. “Because we were involved in Twitter and Facebook and people have smartphones, they were getting information even though they had no power in their homes.
“That was a cool use of the new technology, and I think it worked out well,” he added.
The borough also maintained some of the traditional communication methods for residents who may not be on social media websites.
Mahon said the borough is requesting feedback from residents about what the borough did well and what can be improved on through social media.