The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is now set up to use Twitter at all stages of an emergency—before the event strikes, during the event and after.
FEMA has a Twitter page (@FEMA) with 30,000 followers.
Before a forecast storm hits, FEMA can tweet advice to those in the affected area. On Feb. 8 the agency instructed its followers: “Another #winterstorm for OK, north TX & New Mexico tonight/tmrw. Prepare at http://go.usa.gov/akw & follow @okem @txdps @NMDHSEM.”
During an event, FEMA monitors Twitter by tracking the service's hash tags, which an eventual consensus of users assigns to mark a given event. During the major snow and ice storm that moved across the U.S. in early February, the most commonly used hash tag was #snomg.
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