Frankenstorm Hurricane Sandy Victims still out of power Rations Gas Today Sunday November 4 2012

Hurricane Sandy made New Jersey its target, and if Twitter was any measure — if not the measure — the world was keenly aware.

As Sandy loomed off our coast Monday, "East Coast" and "New Jersey" accompanied the original storm nickname — #frankenstorm — FEMA and #Sandy in the Twitter trends.

The social network served as both a sounding board and source of crucial information as cable and power went out for a bulk of the tri-state area. As the ominous night drew on, N.J. stayed in the trends, joined by Atlantic City, Mother Nature and Long Island. Soon, Gov. Chris Christie was trending worldwide. Then came Mayor Bloomberg, G-d Bless NYC and "Nova Jersey."

During the course of the storm, quite a ways before President Barack Obama and Gov. Christie visited Brigantine, a heavily retweeted photo of a shark swimming in deep flood waters around a series of homes caused the island to trend worldwide — even if that picture wasn't real.

As the storm hit and talk of its anticipated severity reached a fever pitch, "Katrina" entered the U.S. trends.


'Coming Together'

The Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together telethon netted fair amount of trends last night, even as many of the people it sought to help lacked power to watch the broadcast. Those who didn't have cable but did have internet access could watch a live stream of the event (we had both that and a live blog here).


From left to right: Steven Tyler, Jimmy Fallon, Mark Rivera (Billy Joel saxophone collaborator) and Bruce Springsteen, teaming up for a song during the Hurricane Sandy telethon last night.
Heidi Gutman/NBC
Around the world #SandyHelp, the telethon's requested hashtag, trended for the duration of the hour telecast, along with "Text 90999," the number viewers texted in order to donate money to the Red Cross (by sending the message "Redcross"). Another global tweet-getter was "Under the Boardwalk," the Drifters song delivered by an unlikely troupe consisting of Jimmy Fallon, Steven Tyler, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.

Other U.S. telethon trends: #BonJovi, for his performances of "Who Says You Can't Go Home" and "Livin' on a Prayer," "Coming Together," Billy Joel and #billyjoel for a special Sandy rendition of "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway), "Dream On" (from Steven Tyler and Aerosmith), #Sting for singing #MessageInABottle, as well as another telethon act, #maryjblige, and "Fix You," the Coldplay song used during a series of images from Sandy's aftermath. Trending actor-musician Kevin Bacon introduced the heart-wrenching display.

When it came to getting help, #njgas proved a crucial hashtag, whereby Jersey drivers could inform everyone of their status at the pump, gas availability and wait times. Even as the governor instituted rationing in 12 counties, locals shared their experiences through the social network and mined tweets for leads.

Post-storm news produced "NYC Marathon Cancelled" and recurring trend Staten Island. In many tweets the two were inextricably linked, with posts criticizing Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his initial decision to move forward with the marathon despite the continued suffering of Sandy victims there.

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