LEE KRAMER'S ROOM: With Views

[EZ2]

Let this soak in ---- but further,
let it soak in as if (you're a mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, etc.
--- and ONE of those
names belongs to YOU !)

Desperate Tweets for Help Finding Loved Ones -- Update
DOW JONES & COMPANY, INC. 7:21 AM ET 5/23/2017
By Alistair MacDonald and Georgi Kantchev

They were looking for Olivia, Laura, Chloe and Liam, for cousins, daughters, friends and brothers.

In the hours after a suspected terrorist attack killed at least 22 at a concert in Manchester, England, relatives and friends of people who had attended the event and were still missing sent often desperate appeals for information across Twitter. Thousands retweeted them.

The social media site became a bulletin board for others to offer help. Taxis gave free rides to those trapped in the city center, local residents opened their homes to stranded people, and a hotel acted as a staging post for teenagers whose parents had planned to pick them up outside Manchester Arena.

Not long after the blast, someone with the account Matt Rowe tweeted that his brother Marty was missing. Within a few hours, the post had more than 10,000 retweets and 3,500 likes.

"He hasn't contacted anybody," he wrote. "Has anybody seen him?"

Angus MacNiel, a lawmaker for the Scottish National Party, tweeted his concerns over two missing girls, Laura MacIntyre and Eilidh MacLeod, from the remote Island of Barra, in his parliamentary constituency.

Family and friends posted a picture of Chloe Rutherford and Liam Curry, a couple who were at the concert. Charlotte Campbell was looking for her 15-year-old daughter, Olivia, who was at the concert with a friend. Ms. Campbell told the British Broadcasting Corp. that through Twitter people had offered to go out into the streets to look for her daughter.

The Wall Street Journal couldn't verify all the tweets and some of the appeals turned out to be hoaxes.

A Twitter account that listed its owner as Kevin from Long Island tweeted that he had lost his brother, Ricky Gallagher, who had been attending the concert. The tweet came with a picture of a teenage boy. But the account later tweeted that it had been trolling, a term for deliberately inciting others on the Internet or social media.

The hashtag #roomformanchester quickly started trending on Twitter. Rachel Ellis, a blogger and mental health campaigner, used it to offer shelter to those in need.

"I live 15 minutes away and wanted to offer whatever help I could, that concert will have been mostly kids," she said. "Can't begin to imagine how terrified they were, and still are."

She was quickly contacted by dozens of people stranded in the area, though most found accommodation closer to the venue.

"I will be waiting up a little while longer in case anyone does need my help," Ms. Ellis said.

Paula Robinson, a hospital worker who was out with her husband, said they heard the explosion and then saw dozens of children running away from the concert venue. She took a large group and walked them to a nearby Holiday Inn hotel and started reaching out to parents.

"I must have had about 500 phone calls with parents," she said. "Hopefully we were able to help a bit in this awful night."

But hours later, many parents still hadn't found their children.

Ms. Campbell told CNN she hadn't been able to reach Olivia. She said her husband went looking for their daughter at hospitals without success. Police told her Olivia would be listed as a missing person and to wait with other parents seeking their children

"It's the most horrible feeling...to know your daughter is there and not know if she is dead or alive," she said. " I want her home and I want her safe."

Write to Alistair MacDonald at [e-mail] and Georgi Kantchev at [e-mail]


(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-23-170721ET
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.