US mayor tweets through snow crisis

While other officials took heat for their lame response to paralysing US blizzards, Newark’s mayor ingeniously used Twitter and earnt himself political kudos for helping dig out those in need.

“I need street names and patience,” Cory Booker told one worried tweeter as up to 80 centimeters (32 inches) of snow trapped many New Jersey residents in their homes.

An avalanche of responses followed, many of which Booker answered with personal house calls, shovel in hand. His Twitter account, @CoryBooker, reads like a real-time history of one man’s struggle to free his city from the snow.

“I’m on my way to Treamont Ave now to help dig your mom out,” one Booker tweet said, while news clips showed the rising star in the Democratic Party working tirelessly to clear pavements, dig out vehicles and rescue stricken citizens.

When @Babihead tweeted “still has yet to clean my street & I live across from hospital!,” Booker responded: “Sending team immediately back there 2 ensure hospital is clear.”

“Plez help my dad he’s snowed in at home & i cant get to him from NY,” another tweeter said, using the abbreviations and minimal punctuation that have become the hallmark of the rabidly popular microblogging site.

Responding like some new media hero, Booker replied: “Please DM (direct message) me his # and address. I will try & help.”

“I need my block plow, mines is North 13th Street,” wrote another resident. “We got it earlier – but I know it needs more attention. Please be patient,” came the reassuring reply.

His very personal campaign came in stark contrast to the much criticised efforts of other top officials including New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who went on a Disney World vacation in Florida despite the impending storm.

But Booker, 41, stuck up for New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was copping the most flak after the Big Apple struggled to clear the massive snow falls and reports emerged of ambulances failing to reach critical patients.

“People far 2 rough on @mikebloomberg – still fighting 2 clear snow in NWK & we are 1/29th size of NYC,” he writes.

Booker, who was educated at Stanford, Yale and Britain’s prestigious Oxford University and has been compared by some to Barack Obama before he assumed the US presidency, has more than a million followers on Twitter. – AFP