AUBURN — The more the snow fell, the faster the social media status rose.
Social media sites such as Facebook saw a dramatic increase in visitors as people struggled to find critical information during last week’s storm that dumped more than a foot of snow on northeastern Indiana.
This newspaper’s website, kpcnews.com, had 56,834 page views on Monday when the entire area saw its travel limited to emergency vehicles only. That website had 20,556 page views on Sunday, before the storm began in earnest. On Tuesday, that number was 46,068. By Wednesday, page views were down to 21,502 as travel restrictions were lifted and some people were able to go back to work.
Perhaps nowhere was the spike in social media more striking than in DeKalb County.
That county’s Homeland Security director, Roger Powers, did not have a Facebook page until Jan. 4. When the storm started, the site had one “like.” By the time the storm had left, more than 1,100 people had liked the site.
Powers said 400 people saw the Facebook announcement that the storm was coming. That number grew to 2,901 when a Level 1 snow emergency was enacted, limiting travel to all but emergency vehicles in DeKalb County.
When the entire city of Auburn lost power on Monday evening, 4,000 people logged onto the Facebook page to read an announcement regarding emergency shelters. That number rose to 4,300 when the Level 1 emergency was lifted on Wednesday.
The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department has had a Facebook page for a considerable amount of time before the storm, it had 1,300 “likes,” Powers said. After the storm, that number had risen to 4,000.
When the snow emergency was declared, the sheriff’s department’s Facebook announcement had more than 61,000 views.
When the next incident happens, Powers said, he will utilize Facebook more.
“I didn’t know social media would be able to reach so many people,” Powers said. “Our Facebook was slammed. It grew as the storm kept coming.”