Reading in the Dazette that there was a storm here on Friday--which explains the 100 mph wind and heavy rain a little after 1:00 pm! I captured some of it on video from my upstairs porch door and bicycling thru neighborhoods until the camera's memory card ran out.
Ironically, I was about to buy a new video camera when the power went out.The freakish storm is being called an "inland Hurricane" by experts:"Hurricane Lucille"?
Naturally, I tweeted the event on my Blackberry - sending out 140 character updates of "the situation". Unfortunately no one in Carbondale actually READ them at the time, but at least I shared the event w/ out-of-towners
On Saturday I tuned into C'dale radio 1620-AM and only heard a Boil Water order. A little more info would have been appreciated, so I text-messaged Mayor Cole about the lack of info, and he texted back they were "working on it"
Later he texted that the radio message was changed and an email had been sent. EMAIL? Who could read it w/ the power down? He texted back for me to get a printed copy at City Hall. I went there, but the door was locked and the email was taped to the door.
Later, at an emergency meeting for City staff and Council at 1pm, I posted a quick tweet, but I gave it a rest, since Codell Rodriguez was writing down the details for The Southern Illinoisan. (Although they didn't make it into the SI's Twitter account)
After the meeting I drove to Duquoin w/ another C'dale refugee and got the last room in town at the Budget Inn, watched the Denver Nuggets beat Dallas, and said hi to Councilman Haynes at Krogers.
That's my report so far.
It's Monday morning and I'm thumbing out this text on the Blackberry..
I plan to question Mayor Cole about the City's emergency communications response.
And the tweets just keep on coming.
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