Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Twitter

'Twas a crazy weather week for Virginia and the Mid-Atlantic/East Coast.  Our tectonic plates collided and we incurred the unrelenting wrath of a woman scorned.  Propitiously, social media captured it all and supplied humor throughout the dual calamities. That kid in Virginia Beach who mooned/full-frontal nudity-ed the cameras during a live report by The Weather Channel’s Eric Fisher (step aside Arthur Kent, there’s a new "Scud (refers to low clouds in addition to ballistic missiles) Stud" in town) elicited a guffaw out of me too.  But I digress…

Within a minute after the 5.8 magnitude quake stopped rattling, Twitter was deluged with 40,000 comments.  For perspective---that’s more tweets than when Osama bin Laden was killed. Throughout Hurricane Irene, the Twitterverse was again alive with 140-character quips, observations and advice.  In fact, per USA Today, throughout the weekend, Twitter was flooded (pun intended) with 3,000 hurricane-related posts per minute.  It took MTV’s Video Music Awards on Sunday to finally topple Hurricane Irene from it's reign as the top trending topic.  Because, nobody puts Lady Gaga in a corner.

Excerpted are some of the more colorful tweets regarding the earthquake:

CDotFullStop:  Chris Brown tweeted “Please pray for Virginia”  Someone RTd* him saying: “Oh God.  What did you to her ??”

(*RT stands for “retweet” on Twitter and means reposting what someone else already said.)

daveweigel:  Old CW*:  What if Obama’s a one-term president? New CW*:  What if Obama’s THE LAST PRESIDENT?

(*CW is short for conventional wisdom.)

CalebHowe:  Breaking:  Obama administration points out that they “inherited” fault lines from previous administrations.

Kombiz:  Earthquake made me spill my tea…I’m available for interviews.

giromide:  Hurricane Irene has a posse.

daamoth:  Aren’t animals supposed to do cool pre-earthquake tricks like run around on their hind legs and smoke cigarettes?  My dog did NOTHING.

80miles:  These hilarious quake tweets ought to be called “laughter shocks.”

pourmecoffee:  Earthquake in DC.  DO not panic.  A Super Committee will be formed to at some point possibly decide what to do.

[Si]dragon:  What I love about the internet.  It took us less time to learn the magnitude than to exit the building.

BrianYarval:  OK pipe down D.C., the New Yorkers have to discuss their earthquake moments and surviving “the Big One.”

Another tweet that got a lot of RT featured a shot of white plastic lawn furniture atop a pristine grassy yard.  The picture showed a table and 3 chairs upright and orderly with the 4^th chair toppled on its side.  Superimposed across the top of the shot was the date “8-23-11” and on the bottom was scrolled, “Never Forget”.  A variation of this same photo featured the caption “We will Rebuild”.  Both posts poked fun at the East Coast’s "overreaction" to the earthquake.

Facebook got in on the post-earthquake social media action too:

“Tell me when it’s OK to stop looting.”

“Bam.  I just survived the Reston quake of 2011 in the bathroom.  Classy.”

And then there was Twitter.  Irene Tien is a Twitter-user and 28 year-old media professional who goes by the (unfortunate, at first) handle of @Irene.  At the onset of the hurricane, she was inundated with mentions of the storm to her personal account.  At first she responded with:

Irene:  BTW*, tweeting @Irene doesn’t deliver any messages to the hurricane.  Sorry.

(*BTW stands for by the way.) 

But then, at the prodding of her colleagues, she decided to have a little fun with the coincidence of names.  She changed her profile picture to a radar shot of the storm and updated her bio to:  “I don’t want to hurt anyone”, and then proceeded to offer helpful and funny posts, all under the guise of being the actual Hurricane Irene:

Irene:  Hey, so…this is Irene, the hurricane.

Irene:  So I asked Irene Tien if I could borrow her account for a few days…and she kindly accepted.

Some of her more entertaining tweets included:

Irene:  I may not always be entirely serious…or cirrus…or even cumulonimbus…but I’ll try to be helpful.

Irene:  Wow, rough night hanging off the Carolina coast.  I still feel like I’ve got a bad case of the spins.

Irene:  My first time in Kitty Hawk.  Where’s the Wright Bros. museum?

Irene:  Morning all.  Decided to change into something a little more tropical storm for my NYC visit.

Irene:  Just landed at Coney Island.  You call this a “Cyclone”? ;-)

Irene:  Wait…you mean to tell me Derek Jeter is single again?  BRING HIM TO ME.

Irene:  Jets vs. Giants preseason game moved to Monday?  I was hoping to make it!  Mark Sanchez is so dreamy!”

Some other notable tweets on Hurricane Irene included:

BradWalsh:  Like many young women before her, Irene came to NYC hoping to be as big as she was back in Carolina, only to be ridiculed by the locals.

WilliamFerris:  The only damage done was to my liver.

BorowitzReport:  If the Weather Channel loses any more credibility it will be FOX.

jasonmustian:  Many businesses along the east coast have already boarded up their windows.  Not because of the hurricane though.  Because of the recession.

kattcalls:  Hopefully the cast of “Jersey Shore” will decide to go surfing.

Choire:  This is what they call the eye or alternately the “outdoor smoking hour.”

JeffGaffigan:  Speaking of mandatory evacuation, i [sic] just ate Indian food.

Bengreenman:  I’m showing my kids “Twister.”  Is that therapeutic or sadistic?

Winston_Wolfe:  N.C. Gov says storm “not as bad as originally thought,” meanwhile Guiness record for most people hiding under beds to be set in NYC later.

allisonkilkenny:  convinced #irene was a marketing stunt created by the canned bean people.

jeanniegaffigan:  Now those cable newscasters can’t hide their disappointment that Manhattan is not at least half underwater.

usnoaagov:  says I’m 420 miles off the NC coast but I’m not going to make a joke about smoking weed.

JimGaffigan:  I totally got blown out in my Fantasy Hurricane League.

friedmanjon:  I gotta start working off this hurricane 15.

prabalgurung:  If I was Irene I would have performance anxiety by now.  I do hope she does and gives up.

OSCARGirl:  I wonder if manhattan [sic] has enough Pellegrino.

And even a few celebrities weighed in: 

Nicole Richie:  On the plus side, this is the 1^st time the name “Irene” has been popular in a really long time.

Kirstie Alley:  I wonder if Sarah Palin can see the Hurricane from her house…Hmmm

SteveMartinToGo:  New approach to hurricane Irene.  I’m going to try to reason with it.

Can’t wait to read the tweets once the locusts start arriving…