Montgomery County CERT was invited to participate as a guest speaker on the topic of social media in emergency management. I spoke about our award-winning social media pilot project that was deployed during the March 2013 snow storm. Members of Montgomery County CERT were deployed, both virtually (from the confines of their home) and physically (within the Emergency Operations Center)

1. 2013 Prince George’s County Emergency Preparedness Conference
Creating Resilient Communities
Social Media & Emergency Management
Steve Peterson, President
Montgomery County CERT
president@montgomerycert.org
www.facebook.com/montcocert
@montcocert
September 28, 2013

3. March 2013 Winter Storm
• Montgomery County CERT volunteers provided social media
monitoring support within the EOC
– Assigned three 8‐hour shifts (with overlap)
– Maintained a non‐disruptive EOC physical presence
– Provided SM updates to EOC manager
– Followed trending topics
– 9 hours monitoring from own SM accounts

4. Valuable Situational Topics
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Road conditions
Weather conditions
Other EOC activations
Photos of accidents
Power company contact information
Power outage maps
Hash tags to track
Agencies to follow/like
Most valuable contributions came in the morning during the heaviest of snow

5. Valuable Social Media Contributors
•
Maryland Emergency Management Agency
•
Weather Channel
•
Montgomery County Fire and Rescue
•
Baltimore County Police & Fire
•
NBC 29 News
•
Virginia Department of Transportation
•
Maryland State Highway Administration

6. How It Worked
2
provided verified
info for
Posts
ReTweet
ReTweet
Tweets
Posts
Tweets
Authoritative
Tweet
3
ReTweet
ReTweet
ReTweet
4
1
GENERAL PUBLIC
COMMUNICATIONS
AGENCY
COMMUNICATIONS
GENERAL PUBLIC
COMMUNICATIONS

7. Lessons Learned
• Pre‐established understanding
• Non‐disruptive EOC physical presence
• Disciplined in providing updates to EOC manager
• Overlap in shift times
• Same computer for each shift
• Remained flexible in changing weather conditions (shift cut)

8. Challenges
• Searching for certainty through the noise
– Example: DuPont Circle snow ball fight
• Verification of information
• Resource allocation
– Necessary to verify information before action taken or dissemination

9. Moving Forward
• Continue pursuing social media monitoring in future
emergencies
• Formalize training
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Reporting protocols
EOC etiquette
Social media monitoring understandings
Searching trending topics and keywords
Following/Liking involved agencies
Identifying valuable contributors
How to verify information

10. Thank You
Steve Peterson, President
Montgomery County CERT
president@montgomerycert.org
www.facebook.com/montcocert
@montcocert