Surprisingly, however, this may not be true for the hamsters who make the wheel of government go round. I say this because the most gratifying state or local blog I've found yet is written by, of all people, the Water Bureau employees of Portland, Oregon.
Granted, Portland's water folks have got a narrative edge. Three dozen of their people are down in New Orleans helping to patch pipes and make the Big Easy's water drinkable again. Their group blog offers an inside peek not only into what that difficult job entails, but also day-to-day life in a wounded but slowly-recovering city.
You can see, for example, a picture of where employees of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans are sleeping (in a treatment plant). A fleet guy writes a poignant first-hand account of the busy reconstruction and eerie quiet. A fun item from yesterday recounts how a couple of Portlanders pulled a drowning dog out of a canal. The writing is engaging, informal, and human in a way that no government agency newsletter has ever been in the history of newsletters.
Tricia Knoll, a spokesman for the water bureau, says the blog is a quick way to let the community know what the New Orleans team is doing--and to let families back home know that they are well. The blog has received almost 30,000 hits since October.
The blogging trick will be to sustain the interest once staffers come home in early December. Already, Knoll's own posts have turned to more run-of-the-mill local matters such as the danger of freezing water pipes. This may be tough. But the Portland Water Bureau is off to a good start.
