I discovered Twitter, and then the fires came...

Last Friday I was off work for the day, and thought I'd finally find out what 'twitter' is. I got a login, poked around a bit, couldn't find a single person I knew, but found the ABC news feeds - I set up my twitter to follow all 5 or 6 of them. However, I didn't think I'd bother much with twitter because I couldn't see how it applied to me ...

Fast forward 24 hours to Saturday.

It was about 45C, the wind was raising clouds of topsoil - and it was obvious that if a spark went anywhere then there would be a serious fire... I was in Bendigo, (came through the Marong Road about an hour before that one started) driving around with my Mum and my partner, and then dropped Mum off, and back to Melbourne. I had my car radio on ABC Melbourne (774) in case a fire started in the Macedon-Kyneton corridor. The fact that radio 774 had suspended regular programming to cover the fires and the alerts gave me a bit of a headsup - it could be as bad as feared... I heard the urgent threat alerts about Kilmore, and how worried people were about the expected wind change.

When I got home I checked twitter. That's when I stopped following all of the ABC feeds except 774 and Melbourne news (I only kept Melbourne news 'cos I'm a bit parochial - they didn't add anything).

Then I found @cfa-updates and between those two feeds, my world changed. Suddenly I had a real window into what was happening. I could see how bad is was going to be, how serious the current situation AT THAT MOMENT really was. I called my mother in Dunolly (50 km from Bendigo) and the TV up there had finally started reporting Horsham properly, but she wasn't aware of the seriousness of either Bendigo or Kilmore fires (my parents are on the edge of a state forest and I'm still worried about them).

We went out for dinner - only gone two hours - and when we got back I went straight back on to twitter. I could find no other source of real-time information without adding to the pressure on the official DSE and CFA sites. I was glued to my computer for hours. People started asking ME (and seriously, I'm noone) what was going on with the fires. Why? Because I knew what was going on. Why didn't the news broadcasts? Why didn't commercial radio keep up with this? There were actually people around on Sunday morning who didn't know how bad it really had got because their whole media world is commercial and it just took them way too long.

I have found a few twits (I don't know - what do you call people who 'tweet/twitter'?) whom I am following - and some of them are interesting. @cfa_updates and @774melbourne both deserve recognition for the incredible work they have put in. And the rest of the media (including the other ABC news twitters) need a kick ITA. I think this is the shape of information flow to come, and I am in awe of the potential.

Just a few days ago I logged on to twitter.com and couldn't quite see the point, now I'm a card carrying fan.

If you join twitter, let me know who you are!

Cheers