Australia is looking at using Social Networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to give people an early warning of Bushfires.

Residents of towns in Victoria said they had little or no warning of the disaster in February this year in which 173 people lost their lives.

The use of as many means of communication as possible to get the news out will help to spread the word more quickly, and state premier John Brumby is considering adding internet social networks to the list.

With so many people now online and subscribed to Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed etc this makes a lot of sense. The UK Environment Agency could easily add a Twitter account to it’s list of flood warning methods. No need to tweet every day but a warning tweet seen by me for example could quickly be retweeted to my followers, knowing some of them are in my immediate vicinity. They could then retweet to their followers etc. The word would quickly spread.

Our local council, SHDC, could easily set up a Twitter account and a Facebook page to communicate with local residents and spread flood warnings.

Unfortunately they are a little slow in adopting new technology. To date the new blog section of http://www.sholland.gov.uk/council/edemocracy/ has no content.

There is no point in having a blog if you have nothing to say.