Villages alert residents using Twitter, Facebook

Frustrated by your friend’s blizzard of seemingly self-centered Twitter and Facebook updates?

Well, officials from many local municipalities are trying to make better use of social media so residents can avoid any snow-related mishaps. They’re employing these websites to notify residents about meeting cancellations, road closures and other weather-related emergencies.

But unlike your aunt who constantly streams online updates on what she ate for lunch, local officials try to be judicious about what they post.

“Typically, this is not something you would see an emergency alert for; snowstorms are usually well-anticipated with information out there,” St. Charles Assistant Fire Chief Joe Schelstreet said, while talking about the city’s Twitter account. The village will send out e-mail blasts triggered by such events as water main breaks. Sign up info can be found at the village’s website.

Naperville has 2,500 followers on Twitter. Winfield has about 200 e-mails in its database; Aurora has 1,700. Vernon Hills has 2,000 subscribers out of 8,000 households in town.

These contacts come in handy, but officials want to reassure residents their in boxes won’t overflow with spam.

“E-mail addresses are never shared with an outside entity, and residents can unsubscribe at any time,” Addison spokeswoman Doree Krage said.

The person responsible for sending out the alerts varies by village. Mundelein uses its police department, usually its police chief. Naperville designates a staff member as its snow command supervisor. Bartlett issues alerts via police and its community relations coordinator.

Many towns choose to wait until the last possible moment to make a decision to cancel an event and to issue an alert. The hope is to avoid a storm and the need to cancel.

This storm though has people worried enough that Mount Prospect on Monday morning had already decided to cancel its Tuesday village board meeting. It’s also postponing Wednesday garbage pickup.

“They’re talking about a snowfall of one to three inches an hour,” Mount Prospect spokeswoman Maura El Metennani said. “Our snow plows can’t keep up with that, so we’re asking our residents to be patient.”

While many villages are using new information channels like Twitter, local governments aren’t leaving those without an Internet connection and web savvy out in the cold.

Most villages still employ the reverse-911 phone system, which allows for automated phone call notifications. Towns also use public access cable television and electronic signs outside places including village halls and park district facilities.

Most property owners with landlines don’t have to sign up to receive these phone call alerts. Cell phones are trickier, but in Barrington, for example, residents can use the village’s website to add those numbers and other contact information. Barrington Village Manger Jeff Lawler said the village will use all of its resources during a snowstorm. But they’ll sparingly use the reverse-911 system.

“We’d hate to be in a situation where we overused it and people started removing themselves from the call list,” he said.

Some towns, including Vernon Hills and Wood Dale, use Blackboard Connect, which can send phone, e-mail and text blasts to specific areas within a community.

“We use it, as you can imagine, every judiciously,” Vernon Hills Village Manager Mike Allison said.

Digital delivery can’t reach everyone, though and Beth Nabors, the executive director at Palatine’s Journeys from PADS to HOPE homeless shelter, speaks highly of her group’s word-of-mouth network. Buoyed by aid from local church congregations who post paper bulletins inside their buildings, PADS notifies its clients during severe weather if its 19 suburban shelters will have extended hours. Nabors said this winter PADS has only used the network a “handful of times,” mostly when temperatures plunge. “We don’t want to be alarmists,” Nabors said, adding that “we’ve been very blessed as far as the weather goes.”

On Monday, though, the threat of a heavy snowfall did cause concern. A typical day has 20 to 45 people utilizing services at the PADS day shelter. That spiked to 65 to 70 on Monday, she said.

Ÿ Daily Herald Staff Writers Sheila Ahern, Larissa Chinwah, Justin Kmitch, Beth Mistretta, Russell Lissau, Eric Peterson, Marco Santana, Susan Sarkauskas and Mick Zawislak contributed to this report.