AP Photo/Mark Duncan
One mayor of a small town in Kentucky devastated by a killer winter storm last week ended up using his iPhone to communicate vital emergency and disaster recovery information to the citizens of his community.
“I wish I could say I had some great epiphany I was going to use this to communicate with my citizens, but I didn’t,” said Madisonville Mayor William Cox, who charged his iPhone in his car to keep his messages flowing. “I just got my phone out and started typing, and I haven’t stopped.”
Cox used the iPhone to log into his Facebook account and posted rapid-fire updates to let his constituents know what was going on:
“Will is glad to report that power in parts of the South Main and Grapevine areas is back on. Slowly but surely …,”
“Will asks people with frozen water meters to PLEASE not use a torch or build a fire inside the meter box. This WILL damage the cutoff and meter!”
“Will was just advised by the Hopkins County School System that there is NO school on Monday or Tuesday.”
At the height of the ice storm, more than 1.3 million homes and businesses were left without power in several states, and thousands still don’t have it back. The storm knocked out landline phones and forced some cell phone companies onto backup generators. In many cases, wireless Internet worked when cell phones didn’t get through.
Wonder if Mayor Cox would have reached more or fewer constituents using Twitter?
Thanks to reader JayDee for the tip
