Social media hangs up weather alerts

Posted on July 16, 2020
It took several hours for service to return to the NWS (PHOTO: Pixabay)

 

By Katherine Murphy

As storms pushed through central Illinois Wednesday if you turned to Twitter for your updates from the National Weather Service you were out of luck.

A Bitcoin scam was making its way through the social media outlet and the hack caused Twitter to freeze a number of verified accounts as it worked through the issues.

The Daily Beast reports the National Weather Service was one of those accounts. The weather service uses a network of regional Twitter accounts to publish updates on severe weather so residents in areas experiencing severe weather can prepare.

The Lincoln, Illinois office was trying to tweet alerts about approaching weather but warning coordination meteorologist Chris Miller said it was a challenge.

Miller told The Daily Beast the problem comes if somebody relies on just one method to get their info, there’s a single point of failure, they won’t get that warning and it has the potential to put them in danger.

The bureau had issued a tornado warning for McLean County and was working to get that information to the public.

The National Weather Service said its Twitter access was restored after several hours Wednesday evening.

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