With the first big hurricane of the season touching down today, I knew we'd see some interesting news coverage. As I was scanning the chatter about Hurricane Dolly over lunch, a tweet by the Red Cross caught my eye.

My first reaction was, "the Red Cross uses Twitter?" I followed the link to its blog covering Hurricane Dolly. Although neither the blog nor the twitter feed is a great source for breaking news, I found it very interesting where they were directing folks to get updates on the storm: to the Flickr, Twitter, and Youtube feeds mentioning the hurricane from the public at large.

It's great to see that the Red Cross recognizes that these mediums are popular, real-time posting places for first hand accounts and that the people affected by an event like a hurricane are often the ones who can generate the most timely, useful, and accurate information about local conditions and damage.

Just check out some of these tweets from one user based in Harlingen, Texas, which is 30 miles inland from where the storm hit.

Other twitter users from around South Texas are posting similar updates about conditions in their towns and neighborhoods.

I wonder if we'll see a Twitter round up on the Red Cross' blog next ; )