*EXPLOSION* 21100 W. Superior St.; TG ; FS 96, Explosion in 1 story concrete building. 1 injur... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/3vo3b8
08:50 AM April 28, 2008
from TwitterMail
*UPDATE: 6263 W Leland Wy* 2
story dwelling converted to restaurant; Firefight continues; No
injuries; NFD - Brian Humphrey###
05:36 PM April 27, 2008
from TwitterMail
*Cliff Rescue* 4115 S Gaffey St; TG 854-B2; FS 48, Near Point Fermin; We are still enroute by l... Read more at http://tinyurl.com/5323y2
07:12 PM April 26, 2008
from TwitterMail
These all came across the Twitter feed from the LAFD the past few days. As they happened. Not a news media site feed, but direct from the fire department in real time. Could this be the future of effective government interaction with the public?
I can still turn on the 10 o'clock news and get the fire beat, though let's be honest, I never do. It's just not news at that point. It's footage of a building burning and and on-site reporter wrapping up the aftermath. Entertaining, maybe in some odd way. But is that useful? Not really.
When I'm out driving to a meeting and I get a Twitter update (tweet) on my phone from the LAFD letting me know the 405 is a mess due to an overturned semi truck, that's useful information. Where it gets truly useful is in a city-wide disaster situation.
Atlanta's tornadoes back in March really brought Twitter out to dance. FlowerDust covered her first-hand Twitter tornado updates on her blog. Here in LA we had the massive wildfires from the Santa Ana winds back in October. The LAFD was already actively using Twitter and constantly updating its followers, many of them news organizations, of the fire situation. Talk about early adopters, this was October, and they already had 500 people following them on Twitter. (If you look at the growth of the Twitter-sphere, this was well before the latest user boom.)
If and when the next big earthquake hits Southern California, we're really going to see the power of this approach. And it's a two-way street. Brian Humphrey, the LAFD's Public Information Officer and champion of this next-gen civic communication, calls the Twitter faithful, "our reporters in the field," acting as eyes and ears even before a fire truck has left the station. If the department needs to quickly spread word that the water supply has been contaminated - the "boil tap water" tweet can get beamed out instantly. So if you haven't already, and you live in the LA-area, make sure you are following LAFD. If you don't Twitter, you can also get alerts at http://lafd.org/alert.
Brian and his team at the LAFD totally get it. They understand how powerful the new web tools are and the role they need to play in today's civic government. Open government is a founding principle by and large pretty well adopted across government agencies. But interactive government is where we need to be heading.
I sent a tweet over to LAFD today asking why hasn't the other 4-letter LA-city department, LAPD, jumped on the bandwagon. Brian emailed me back right away and said as of yet, they just haven't gotten on board. "Despite active encouragement and repeated offers of help, the LAPD has
yet to express an interest in Twitter and similar technologies. If they
decide to get on the bandwagon, we will certainly be there to support
them."
LAPD - get with it. If there's a shooting in my neighborhood that just went out over the police scanners, the local news all monitor so they can come point cameras at it 30 min later. But I would like to know the second it goes out. That's when it's useful information!
