Atlanta Storm: Social Media To The Rescue

This map featured on the Facebook page “SnowedOutAtlanta” uses crowdsourcing — soliciting aid from a large source of people, particularly those online — to match motorists stranded in the snow storm with good Samaritans willing to help or offer shelter

As Winter Storm “Leon” 2014 worsened Tuesday evening, a Marietta woman reached out over the social media vines to help stranded motorists, and enable others to help.

According to The Atlanta Consitution, nearly 50,000 people are following Michelle Sollicito’s “SnowedOutAtlanta” Facebook page.

And the social network Sollicito created, which got so big overnight that it had to be splintered into regional pages, is winning applauds from across metro Atlanta.

“You’re saving lives every minute the clock strikes,” Atlantan Nya Bishop said of Sollicito this morning on Sollicito’s personal Facebook page.

“She has done more for our city than any official,” Scott Wise of Marietta said.

The page offers everything from helpful advice to a crowdsourcing map connecting stranded motorists with nearby strangers offering shelter.

“The map was intended to match the offer with the need,” said Jelena Crawford, the Atlanta woman who created the map for the Facebook group. “It’s been great to see it so successful.”

Even now, the site offers a link where people, whose cell phones are dying, can pin their last location before they lose mobile service.

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