Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube… all these social media outlets are changing the way people communicate… with their friends, co workers, and even about breaking news.  In the power outage in the Valley last month, SRP provided speedy updates for their customers about when the power would be back on and where they could pick up ice – much faster than local news could get it to them.   We’ve been at the front of the movement to use social media to get out our public health messages.  Social media is increasingly being recognized nationally and internationally as an important tool for responding to disasters. Check out a great new article in the New England Journal of Medicine called Integrating Social Media into Emergency-Preparedness Efforts– which discusses the importance of leveraging this increasingly valuable tool into public health preparedness response planning.