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It was a normal day on Twitter. New Media and Interactive Consultant Kyra Reed was going about her day (it was Reed who turned The Roxy into a Web 2.0 success story). On Twitter, she chatted with friends as she was at home.
Then, all of the sudden at 5:02 p.m., Ron Myers at the Los Angeles Fire Department tweets a structure fire on the 1000 block of Laguna Ave. "Single family home with fire in the attic. No reports of injuries."
"Whoa, just heard that my friend @kyrareed's apartment is on fire! I hope she's ok!!" exclaimed a friend.
"oh no!!! wtf!!" another friend tweeted.
A friend who was with Reed had some good news in all of this. "Everyone is okay @kyrareed 's. Dogs, turtles, and laptops have been rescued. Thx for it concern." She later explained that a dryer exploded upstairs and the above deck caught fire. "Lucky we were all there."
As the fire burned, Reed tweeted. "all my peeps...thank you for your concern. all are okay, house is still burning, will have water damage to my apt. shaken but safe." Then again in a subsequent update: "watching firemen tear away the roof, exposing orange flames, i cant begin to explain how this moment feels"
At 5:23 p.m., Myers updated the second and last fire status. "Knockdown 25 minutes, 30 Firefighters, No injuries. 2 story home in brush area, no extension into brush."
Plenty of support and "are you okay's" poured into Reed's Twitter account. "thank you for the love. it means so much to get your tweets." Then an hour later, she updates for the last time for the night. "captain said my place is okay for the night. just lots of water damage. good bye carpets."
Photo by Chuck Martel via Flickr
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There is something very odd about the image of someone sitting outside of their burning apartment staring at their Blackberry "tweeting".
proper link for photo credit should be here
is this an advertisement for twitter?
@chuckmartel I could not agree with you more! I had my phone in hand because I called the fire department and was trying to locate my neighbors. My phone kept buzzing and ringing, I couldn't understand why everyone was choosing that minute to send me emails and call me. When I had a minute to check, I found emails like "Are you okay? Twitter is blowing up about the fire at your place" so I checked twitter and there were so many people wanting to know if I was okay and twitter was the easiest way to let them all know at once.
Thank you for all the tweets of support!
I'm officially old. Never heard of twitter...sigh.