Facts and figures from a day indoors during Sandy

By Joseph Marks

October 30, 2012

As of 3 p.m. today, I’m still waiting on stats from FEMA about how their Web and social media traffic fared during Hurricane Sandy’s assault on the East Coast Monday.

I’m predicting a big surge. I’m also -- just to be clear -- not complaining about the delay. FEMA’s very busy today and gathering stats on new followers and retweets is understandably low on the agency’s to do list.

While I wait, though, I’ve been throwing together some stats of my own:

• Power uptime at Nextgov’s Logan Circle annex: 100 percent. I have no idea why, but I’m exceedingly grateful
• Similarly teleworking Nextgov and GovExec editors thrown into the dark at least temporarily on Monday: 80 percent. But we still managed to update the site all day.
• Number of non-storm related story pitches I received from technology industry PR reps: six. That’s extremely low and a welcome rest. Thanks for the restraint guys.
• Pieces of junk mail I received despite the deluge: three. I didn’t want it or ask for it but I do admire the U.S. Postal Service’s grit.
• Number of friends in New York who alerted me -- through Gchat and Facebook -- about the explosion of a Con Edison plant on East 14th Street and FDR Drive via this Gothamist video before any national outlets reported it: three. It shows the power of social writ small and large.
• Number of Twitter parody fights I couldn’t stop following all day: just one. It was between @MittStormTips and the now suspended @RomneyStormTips. I don’t know what @RomneyStormTips did to get suspended and I certainly don’t endorse it. It was great satire while it lasted, though. That’s something this political season could use more of on both sides.

By Joseph Marks

October 30, 2012

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