UK council sets up news blog in response to severe flooding

Anyone who lives in the UK, or has been keeping an eye on us, will know that some parts of the country have experienced severe (for Britain, at least) flooding over the past few months.

One of the areas affected is Cheltenham, and the local council has set up a publicly-accessible blog to post news and information to.

They have elected to use WordPress.com’s free service for their Flood Updates blog, partly because their staff are already using it for their Intranet.

Normally, the Council posts official press releases to a single web page, but their web development officer, Pete Riley, explained, “When the flood crisis hit us, we just thought that a WordPress blog would be the way to go. We decided to use the hosted version and wordpress.com because we couldn’t be sure that we’d have a reliable electricity supply here at the office. This way, any of the team can update the site from anywhere, including our home computers if the need arises.”

The blog has included information and advice on emergency water supplies and recycling of water bottles, as well as photos of the damage, and a letter from the Queen.

Other services being used include Flickr and YouTube.

(Via Journalism.co.uk)

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