St. Denis et al. Jefferson County’s Social Media Communications: 2013 Colorado Floods Proceedings of the 11 th International ISCRAM Conference – University Park, Pennsylvania, USA, May 2014 S.R. Hiltz, M.S. Pfaff, L. Plotnick, and A.C. Robinson, eds. Mastering Social Media: An Analysis of Jefferson County’s Communications during the 2013 Colorado Floods Lise Ann St. Denis ATLAS, Project EPIC University of Colorado, Boulder Lise.St.Denis@colorado.edu Leysia Palen Computer Science, Project EPIC University of Colorado, Boulder Leysia.Palen@colorado.edu Kenneth M. Anderson Computer Science, Project EPIC University of Colorado, Boulder kena@colorado.edu ABSTRACT We report on the social media communications and work practices of the Jefferson County Type III Incident Management Team during the September 2013 Colorado Floods. In this case study, we examine flood-related communications across three platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and the team’s blog for insight into how this innovative team coordinated their communications to meet the information needs of a community outside of the media spotlight. Using a mixed method approach of interviews and social media content analysis, we describe their online behaviors in relation to the needs of the emergency response as a whole. We report on adaptations to their work practice that allowed them to extend traditional communications with social media to create an integrated communication plan. Finally, we look to the team’s experiences for direction in how to use social media in emergencies generally. Keywords Crisis informatics, emergency management, public information, social media, trusted volunteers INTRODUCTION Information and communication technology (ICT), and specifically social media, provide additional means for people to receive information about emergencies beyond mass media and public meetings. Members of the public use it to communicate and share information with friends and family, gather timely and relevant information, seek assistance, and to provide assistance to others (Palen and Liu, 2007; Shklovski, Palen, and Sutton, 2008; Palen, Vieweg, Liu and Hughes, 2009, Qu, Wu and Wang, 2009; Heverin and Zach, 2010; Starbird and Palen, 2011; Perng, Büscher, Halvorsrud, Wood, Stiso, Ramirez, and Al-Akkad, 2012). However, when emergency response groups establish social media accounts, members of the public attend to them and pass on their posts as credible sources for the latest emergency information (Starbird and Palen, 2010). The public engages directly with emergency responders who are actively online, posing new opportunities and challenges for such groups (Denef, Bayerl and Klaptein, 2013; Hughes, St. Denis, Palen and Anderson, 2014). However, public adoption of social media has far outpaced emergency management’s capacity to adapt to it internally themselves. Relatively few groups use social media, in spite of a demand for “best practices” around social media use for emergency management. Lantonero and Shklovski (2011) examine how change happened in a fire department by way of a social media champion A recent study of the online communication practices of the 840 fire and police departments within a 100 mile radius of the 2012 Hurricane Sandy landfall shows that a little more than a third of the departments (37%) had an account on any one of the online tools studied (Web, Facebook, Twitter or Nixle). Furthermore, use during and immediately after the disaster was even dramatically lower: only 7% used Twitter and 25% used Facebook (Hughes, et al. 2014).