This document discusses Morris County's use of social media during Hurricane Irene and the Halloween Snowstorm. It outlines how the county set up coordinated Facebook and Twitter accounts with local towns to share emergency information. During the storms, social media posters were active in the emergency operations center or from home to provide updates. The county saw large increases in website and social media traffic during the emergencies, showing social media is a critical communications channel. It recommends counties take the lead in coordinating multi-jurisdictional emergency social media to provide a consistent source of information for the public.

1. Trick or Tweet
Social Media, Hurricane Irene
& the Halloween Snowstorm
Carol A. Spencer
Digital & Social Media Manager
County of Morris NJ
NJ Association of Counties
June 6, 2012

2. What we’ll discuss…
• How Morris County used social media during
Hurricane Irene & the Halloween Snowstorm
• Why social media is a critical communications
channel
• How MCUrgent works
• Why county government should take the lead
• What NJ government web professionals want
you to know
• How well it worked: stats and citizen response

3. How Morris County used
social media during
Hurricane Irene & the
Halloween Snowstorm

4. Getting Ready: Plan and Prepare
Pre-Irene
• Morris County set up Facebook pages & Twitter accounts
• Freeholders adopted a social media policy
• We designed a system where the county and towns could all
post to the same Facebook and Twitter accounts.
•
•
•
•
Morris County is the primary account holder
Towns are invited to post to the County account
Towns can also post to their own accounts at the same time
Towns have unique usernames / passwords for security.
• OEM identified some towns, others volunteered. Six to start.
• Towns selected their posters. Morris County trained them.
• Put out press releases. Posted about emergency channels on
our standard Facebook & Twitter accounts.

5. Hurricane Irene & Halloween Storm
During the storms
• During Hurricane Irene, a social media poster was in the EOC
• During the Halloween Snowstorm, social media posts were
done from home.
• Using Hootsuite, we posted to Facebook & Twitter, both to
MCUrgent and MorrisCountyNJ
• We created a blog for road closure updates
• We created a separate blog for shelter, ice, water,
recharging stations
• We posted information that was coming into the EOC from
E-Teams.
• We monitored town websites & FB, Twitter, Nixle accounts.

6. Why Social Media
is a Critical
Communications
Channel

8. Why be in the social space
We’re social and mobile…
• Gen Y (17 to 34) & Gen X (35 to 45) have abandoned email
• 96% of Gen Y belong to a social network
• If FB were a country, it would be the 3rd largest
• Fastest growing segment on FB is women, 55 – 65
• US mobile penetration: 110% (phones, tablets)
• There are more than 100M smartphone users in the US,
up 13% just since October 2011
• 74.6% of adults and 87% of teens text message on their
phones
People expect to get information where they want it

9. Emergency Communications
• Television: local jurisdictions don’t typically have
access; worthless without electricity
• Radio: Lack of local broadcast channels; reliance on
commercial stations
• Reverse 9-1-1: Many have given up their landlines
and replaced with unlisted cell phones
• Websites: Outsourced? Local server? Need web
professional
• CRM Systems: Expensive, require registration
• Social Media: Doesn’t require electricity,
registration, anyone can post from anywhere

10. NJ is not immune to disaster
•
January 1996: State of Emergency declared in NJ due to
excessive snowfall. Lasted 6 days.
•
August 1999: Drought Emergency declared in NJ. Lasted until
Hurricane Floyd.
•
September 1999: Hurricane Floyd. 6 deaths. 26,000 evacuations
in NJ. 616,000 without power for 5 days or more. 500,000 had to
boil water for 8 days. Worst natural disaster in NJ history.
•
August 2000: 14” rain, 2600 people evacuated,
4 dams breached in Sussex / Morris counties
•
June 2001: Inferno closes Route 80 completely for 3 days; 50%
for three months.
•
September 2004: Hurricane Ivan. Delaware River peak highest
since 1955.
•
March 2010: Record snowfall, then nor’easter. State of
Emergency declared.

11. Social Media is a critical channel
•
Social media is the first place people go for information
during an emergency
•
Messages are retrievable on any device
•
Messages are retrievable when power is out
•
It runs on non-local, redundant servers:
–
Twitter, Facebook, Google (Blogger, YouTube)
–
It stays up when your own website may be down
•
People can message your jurisdiction via Facebook
comments or Twitter mentions
•
You can post to social media from your phone.
(You cannot typically update a website from your phone.)

12. Social Media is a critical channel
•
It lets people know their government is working, reducing
feelings of isolation, which lead to fear and anxiety
•
Reduces phone calls looking for information
•
Increases public participation
•
Information is sharable and spreads faster than possible with
any other communication channel
•
People around the world can access the information.
Parents / children out of state can follow updates.
•
No other channel can get important information out to
so many so quickly

13. The message spreads quickly
Twitter
(MCUrgent)
Facebook
(MCUrgent)
Twitter
(MorrisCountyNJ)
Facebook
(MorrisCountyNJ)
Twitter
(Town feed)
Facebook
(Town page)
1,066
1,248
2.519
965
157
235
6,190 people could
get the message
with just 1 click of
the mouse.
Twitter “Fast Follow”
users are
not included here
so the number
contacted is higher.

14. M r i s Count y’ s Shar ed, M t i or
ul
j ur i sdi ct i onal
Em gency I nf or m i on Net wor k
er
at
How it works

15. What is MCUrgent?
• An application that utilizes the power of social media to
share official emergency information during a multijurisdictional emergency.
• Led by Morris County’s Office of Emergency Management,
MCUrgent will ultimately include all 39 towns posting to
a single Twitter feed and Facebook page.
• Primarily used in multi-jurisdictional emergencies.
Individual town emergency notices go to that town’s
website, Twitter feed or Facebook page.

16. How MCUrgent Works
#MCParsip RT 46 WB between New Rd and Rt 202/Parsippany
Rd flooded. All lanes closed. 6:37 AM Mar 15 via Twitter
th
Twitter
(MCUrgent)
Facebook
Parsippany
(MCUrgent)
Morris Twp
Denville
Riverdale
Dover
Twitter
Towns create a post
using Hootsuite
(MorrisCountyNJ)
Facebook
(MorrisCountyNJ)
Twitter
(Town feed)
Facebook
(Town page)

17. Hurricane Irene Information Dissemination
MorrisCountyNJ.gov
Town websites
MCUrgent FB Page
Any other entity that wants to pull our
RSS Feed
MCUrgent Feed
Town or County OEM
Publishes a Tweet
Twitter ‘Fast Follow’
Town FB Page
Town Feed
Hurricane Irene blog on
MorrisOEM.org for road
closures, power outages,
recovery information.
Tweets and FB postings
linked to the blog(s).
MorrisCountyNJ Twitter & FB
(retweets)

18. Twitter is the Basis for MCUrgent
• No login required to get messages
• Short, easily scanned messages link back to web pages
• Twitter widgets freely available; easy to put on web pages
• Twitter RSS feed can be pulled into many apps (YouTown)
• Twitter Fast Follow capability sends posts as txt messages
• Can post from desktop, laptop, tablet, iPhone, iPad, Android
phones, Blackberry phones.
• Often, text can get out when phone calls cannot. Twitter
Fast Follow goes as text.
• AccessibleTwitter.com

19. Why Counties
Need to Lead
Hello

20. Why Counties Need to Lead
•
Most major emergencies involve multiple municipalities or
transportation routes that traverse multiple municipalities
•
Municipalities are not silos. Today, people move among and
between them constantly.
•
People need information in one place for multiple
municipalities.
–
People may live in one town and have elderly parents, or
children, in another.
–
People live in one town and work in another.
•
Information is presented in a consistent fashion, in one place
•
It’s just not practical to think people will check multiple local
websites when they try to drive from one side of the county
to the other.
–
511NJ.org is a good example. Similar concept.

21. Why Counties Need to Lead
•
County OEM already aggregates information from towns
during a multi-jurisdictional emergency.
•
Counties can apply this same concept for information.
•
This is a PERFECT shared service
–
Implementation is consistent from town to town
–
County designs the system and trains town personnel;
towns or county can do the posting.
–
Added benefit for towns is learning how to implement their
own social media, enhancing the town’s public communications
–
Any fee-based product is purchased once for use by all
–
Information aggregation benefits the public

22. What NJ Government
Web Professionals
Want You to Know
Comments from members of
GoWProNJ.net

23. Hurricane Irene & Halloween Storm
We learned:
• During declared emergencies, someone needs to be in the
EOC posting to social media
• Someone needs to be trained, and available, as a backup.
• Be technologically prepared to post if electricity is out or
wired / wireless network is out (air card)
• Have outside connection to the internet to post without
using the county network
• Be ready for major increases in web traffic
• Be ready for internal servers to be down, if hosting internally
• Consider hosting company in another part of the country,
if hosting externally

24. Hurricane Irene & Halloween Storm
Comments from GoWProNJ.net members:
• We’re the last thought of internally, yet the first thought of
externally.
• Home posting is not efficient.
•
There is no way to know when someone’s connection from
home fails. The public is relying on this information and
they don’t know either. In one town, the last post before
home power went out was a tornado warning.
•
Without hearing what’s going on in the EOC, the posting
web professional is “flying blind”
•
No visibility of E-teams or white board information. No
idea when to take down or correct information
•
No access to people to verify or get corrected information
to respond to public questions or incorrect public postings.

25. Hurricane Irene & Halloween Storm
Comments from GoWProNJ.net members:
• Reporting structure needs to be clear, determined in
advance, to avoid confusion.
• Trust the poster. Chain of command issues can really slow
down getting information out.
• Road closures are the most sought out information.
Learning Google maps or using GIS can be very effective.
• Include web / social media people in the ADVANCE
planning meetings.
• Include web / social media people in the AFTER-ACTION
reporting meetings.
• Provide preparedness information for dissemination in
advance.

26. How Well it Worked
Hello

27. Hurricane Irene: Morris County Stats
Website(s)
•Homepage views
Irene
Typical
75,155 26,000
Blogger
•Irene & MorrisCountyNJ
36,991
2,400
Facebook
•MorrisCountyNJ
•MCUrgent
49,610
99,005
5,500
400
Twitter
•MorrisCountyNJ
•MCUrgent
169,292
20,448
18,000
0
450,337
52,300
TOTAL VIEWS

28. The Public’s Opinion
Hello

29. How to Implement MCUrgent in your County
•
Determine the lead department / agency
•
Design your own system or copy ours
•
Obtain Administration / Governing Body buy-in
•
Present the concept to the towns via OEM Coordinators,
county league of municipalities, Chief’s of Police Associations
or other municipal membership entities
•
Implement at the County level first.
•
Implement with a few towns and grow.
•
Provide hands-on training. Design your own or copy ours
•
Be prepared to post for the towns, in the EOC, during a
major emergency as their confidence builds.

30. Contact Information
Carol A. Spencer
Digital & Social Media Manager, Morris County
Website :
MorrisCountyNJ.gov
Email :
CSpencer@co.morris.nj.us or
CarolSpencerNJ@gmail.com
Facebook :
Facebook.com/MorrisCountyNJ
Facebook :
Facebook.com/MCUrgent
Twitter :
Twitter.com/MorrisCountyNJ
Twitter :
Twitter.com/MCUrgent (or MCUrgent.com)

31. Trick or Tweet
Social Media, Hurricane Irene
& the Halloween Snowstorm
Carol A. Spencer
Digital & Social Media Manager
County of Morris NJ
NJ Association of Counties
June 6, 2012