In ~2014, my colleague & I argued that social media (esp. Twitter) had become part of the critical infrastructure of disaster response. People were turning to Twitter during crises to share information about impacts and resources. Disaster responders were using the data shared there for situational awareness, and were communicating in real-time with their constituents. Today’s events underscore just how dangerous it is for society to come to rely on private platforms as critical infrastructure.
@katestarbird In the DC area we had a serious weather warning for severe storms and where normally I'd look to Capital Weather Gang's Twitter account (the WashPost weather team's main source for breaking weather) now it was fully non-functional.

@tchambers @katestarbird Same case in Cali, the National Weather Service uses Twitter quite a bit.

Really helpful with this heatwave we're going through.