What if social media had been available?
It’s hard to believe we are approaching a full year since Superstorm Sandy made her unforgettable appearance on the East Coast and left her mark as the second costliest storm in U.S. history. Millions along the coast were without power for days—some for weeks. It is an event no one wants to re-live. 
But, it doesn’t take a superstorm to knock out power to so many people. On a hot summer day—August 14, 2003—to be exact, it was a mere tree branch that caused the widespread power outage now known simply as “The Northeast Blackout.” It has been 10 years since 45 million people in eight states and 10 million in Ontario, Canada lost their power due to the catastrophic cascading outage that began in a suburb of Cleveland, OH with…a tree branch. Ok, yes, there were other factors and if you check out the Wikipedia page, you can read the blow by blow, second by second timeline of what happened and where. Suffice it to say, however, negligence on the part of First Energy was a significant factor. One expert referred to the causes as, “tools, training and trees.”
While some new policies and grid improvements since then reduce the risk of the same thing happening again, some feel more prevention efforts need to be in place in preparation for the next blackout. From a communications standpoint, what can utilities and corporations be doing now to prepare for “the next big thing?”
A lot has changed in 10 years—the biggest difference being the addition of social media as a communications tool. Social media managers and public relations professionals now use social media for much more than promoting their product or service. Today, the most effective companies “listen” to what is happening on social media channels. They are proactive in monitoring the conversations occurring about their company and have a direct line to company executives when issues arise.
In the case of the blackout, it’s quite possible that social media listening would have helped avoid the one-hour of lost time that lapsed from the first instance a transmission line tripped to when the complete blackout occurred. In that hour, utility workers may have been able to make some corrections and reroute electricity so the cascading outage would have been avoided. We’ve seen time and again—most notably with Hurricane Sandy, that customers will take to social media the moment disaster strikes or when power outages happen because it’s their connection to the rest of the world when other means fail.
And, it’s not just customers using social media. Companies themselves can use it to send out messages to other organizations, create hashtags so a certain issue can be monitored in real time, communicate with large groups of outside organizations and of course keep the public informed of what is happening. If social media had been around in 2003, perhaps First Energy could have put a message out that transmission lines had tripped in Ohio and the electrical load was unstable so other organizations would see it and the public could be encouraged to reduce their electrical use for a period of time until investigations had been completed.
No one will ever know if the outcome would have been different had social media been available to communicate with other power companies and the public. We do know that more recent disasters have been documented in real time via social media channels. In fact, last year, the American Red Cross launched a Social Media Disaster Response Center to actively listen and monitor communications before, during and after a disaster with the goal of helping those impacted. It’s a model more organizations should consider, especially with hurricane season upon us and the potential for a disaster to strike at any moment. A comprehensive social media strategy is not just a “nice to have” communications line item, it’s a key tool that can save money and potentially lives.
On a personal note, I was very fortunate because Pittsburgh was not impacted by the blackout. However, I had family members and friends in Ohio and Michigan who lost power for many days. It was a hot summer too. It’s a summer they’ll never forget.wo
Tell us your story—what were you doing when the Northeast Blackout occurred? Did you lose power?
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Hollie Geitner is vice president, client services for WordWrite Communications. You can find her on Twitter @JustHollieG.
