When it seemed inevitable that record flooding would prompt the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to blow three sections of levee and open the Birds Point-New Madrid floodway this past spring, Corps communicators sprang into action to “revolutionize” their use of social media, says Scott Whitney, regional flood-risk manager for the Corps’ Mississippi Valley Division.
“We broke the barriers on how we deal with the public. This was the first time social media—Facebook, specifically—was used in a flood fight for ongoing communications with the public and media,” Whitney says.