In case you haven’t heard (or, for you Columbia residents, haven’t looked out a window in the last few days), Missouri got a bit of snow Thursday — about 10.2 inches to be exact.
As one can imagine, the news never stops, especially on a winter weather day. During Wednesday’s budget meeting, our community outreach team introduced a way for staff and community members alike to participate in the reporting process of the inclement weather: Using the hashtag “#CoMoSnow,” people could tweet pictures of and updates about the weather that would be aggregated on the Missourian’s CoMoSnow RebelMouse page.
I tweeted a picture of my street in the morning, and as I monitored the page throughout the day, I was amazed to watch the coverage grow. What began as content mainly from Missourian editors and staff members turned into a community-wide network of pictures of snowed-in cars, comments about traffic and videos of first snow day experiences.
The coverage continued this morning, and as I left my snowed-in street in Columbia to travel to the St. Louis airport (major props to MO-X, which was well-prepared to continue its door-to-door service in inclement weather), I tweeted more of what I saw on my way out of Columbia, including traffic on I-70 East and Hickman High School’s snow-covered parking lot (which was being cleared by a lone vehicle). The Missourian even retweeted two of my tweets to Twitter followers.
I thought this RebelMouse aggregation was a wonderful way to serve the community and help people stay safe, and I enjoyed participating. Props to the Missourian’s community outreach team!