During the recent storm, Twitter served as my eyes and ears after we were evacuated to higher ground. I follow over 1,000 Long Islanders who follow me back and quite a number of these people kept me up to date what was going on throughout the entire area. Here are my tips on how to use Twitter during any storm (assuming you have power and reception, of course)

1. Build up a local following: Spend time every week finding people in your area on Twitter. You don’t have to follow them, just add them into lists. Use your local media outlets and TV station twitter accounts as resources – they get a lot of nearby followers. I have three lists of just Long Islanders.

2. Set up your mobile phone: Make sure you have your Twitter account set up on your mobile phone and your lists are easily accessible.

3. Don’t just read the news: During the storm, retweet important information and conditions. This helps spread the news to other people who might not be following the same people.

4. Find hashtags: During hurricane Irene, I was using #Irene and #IreneLI is most of my tweets. Hashtags (the number sign) identify the subject of my tweet and help other people find the information I was sharing.

5. Utilize Twitter’s search tools: Perform a search for your town, city or neighborhood. You may find tweets from people you aren’t following. Using a simple search for ‘Bellport’ I connected with other people from my town and got great information as to what was going on.

What tips do you have to share? Add them to comments below.