Friday morning, 6:51 am.
The phone alert goes off.
My husband, quite tired, says "oh, its a thunderstorm warning" and closes his eyes again. NO. It's a tornado warning. We bolt out of bed, grab our teen, and head to the basement. OK, fine, we also grab computers, iPads, and wallets and I think my husband takes the dog out quickly (which makes no sense; he says he heard a huge boom as he shut the side door but didn't look back to see what it was).
We sit on the couches in the basement, stunned and trying to wake up (except for the teen; she realizes that she is going to be late for school and will miss her FAST test). The weather gets worse and the power flickers. I try to remember how to check the weather, who would be updating the info. Boom. Power gone. I tether to my phone and find the weather guy streaming on Facebook. In that moment, he is my hero.
After what feels like forever, the storm passes. We head upstairs. The yard has acquired a giant pine branch, maybe 30 feet long. Half of our fence is gone. Debris everywhere. But we are okay.
I try to get some info. Was there a tornado? Are people injured? What's going on?
Twitter! (I still can't bring myself to call it X) Haven't been on there in forever, but it's a great place to get info about events as they unfold. I see some early photos. I read about power outages. I head to Facebook where people are starting to post in big local groups (nothing from my local friends yet). I go to Instagram, where (as expected) I see nothing about a tornado. And then my phone stops working.
It just stops working. I can't get a signal. I cant text, get email or look on social media. I feel silenced and distanced from the world. At some point, we head out and drive around. The idea is we'll get some coffee and at some point well pick up a signal. We drive toward FSU. Nothing. Around FSU. Nothing (but I see the blown away circus tent and a huge mess all around the stadium area). We are in public, but our lives are more isolated than usual.
We find ourselves on the other side of town, on Capital Circle NE. I use the wifi at Publix to text family and tell them we are okay. At Starbucks, our phones finally get signals again. We sit in the car in a stupor, again scrolling social media to find out what's going on. After a few minutes we head home, and lose the signal again.
We are without network service for several hours. How weird! I'm used to being without power in the aftermath of a storm, but we have a generator and a ton of huge charging bricks. I'm not used to being without the Internet. I'm not used to not being able to search for info about what's going on. I'm not used to spending a day with no text messages.
It's not bad, it's just different ... isolating. And very quiet.
My four big takeaways:
- When something is happening in the world, I believe I should be able to find info about it online, swiftly.
- Much as I don't like Twitter these days, its affordances make it a great tool for finding info on an event as it unfolds.
- Facebook can be useful for bringing together a local community after an event.
- Instagram is fun and interesting, but just not where it's at when events are unfolding.
Wow, I'm glad you and your family are okay. I also look to social media after a major local event, or even to check on family and friends after an event that I know has happened near them. Facebook is typically where I check first, especially since they have incorporated a useful "marked safe" tool.
ReplyDeleteI live in South Florida so I was not affected by the tornado, but I can imagine how stressful it must have been to experience it and then be without any sort of cell or internet service.
Growing up, my family and I purchased what was then considered a high-tech radio. It was battery-operated and had giant "rabbit ears" that we would gather around if we lost power during a hurricane. We don't keep radios in our hurricane kit anymore, but maybe we should.
I have also sought out news on social media in the past. At the end of last hurricane season, I took to community Facebook pages to learn about the wind and flood damage in my local area. I follow an instagram account that is titled "Slumlords of Savannah" that is dedicated to highlighting this missteps of local property owners and landlords with the intent to document and educate the public. Who among us has not experienced "so and so is now in a relationship with so and so" on Facebook. However, today I return to this blog post to share that I learned sad news this week via social media. A close family member's romantic partner passed away in a motorcycle accident. It wasn't abundantly clear that this person was no longer alive, at first. I had to do a little Facebook sleuthing. Once I realized, I immediately called my family member. I wonder how the scenario might have gone differently had I not learned of this on my own prior to speaking to them. This has been one of my worst fears through the years. While no one wants that phone call or in person conversation, I would feel even more devastated to learn of the passing of someone dear to me, if I had to read it on the internet first.
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to be a "Debbie Downer" here! This situation is tragic. However, social media also allowed the network of people closest to this family member of mine, to reach out and provide support... not so unlike Peter and Trudy's example provided in Rainie and Wellman's Networked (2012).