Blog site served as info vehicle

Pinecam.com owned by towns on U.S. 285

Deborah Frazier, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 29, 2006 at midnight

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When Bailey residents wanted to talk with neighbors about the hostage crisis at Platte Canyon High School , Pinecam.com was there.

Pinecam.com, owned by Bailey, Pine, Conifer, Evergreen and other communities along U.S. 285, describes itself as "An Electronic Community in the Colorado Rockies."

In chat rooms Wednesday, locals passed along information from scanners, officials and witnesses to the tragic events that left a 16-year-old student dead.

For the users of Pinecam.com, the death of Emily Keyes hit hard because they hold a weekly breakfast at the Cutthroat Cafe, where she worked, said Wayne Harrison, who founded Pinecam.com in 1994 to share mushroom-gathering tips.

"It was the first time we've had something like this that hit the community so hard," he said.

Harrison said Pinecam.com evolved into a community site through the Buffalo Creek Fire in 1996 and the Hayman Fire in 2002, with locals offering information on road closures, winds and evacuations.

Pinecam.com has 5,261 registered users, known as Pinecamers, who check for local weather, traffic, lost pets, community events, high-altitude gardening tips and free firewood.

On Wednesday and Thursday,

Pinecam.com got 300 to 500 hits an hour, said Doug Oaks, a Bailey resident who is on Pinecam's board of directors.

Harrison, senior news editor at TheDenverChannel.com, sold the Web site to the communities last year for $1 but helped guide postings Wednesday.

"Because of all the forest fires we've had up there, people have scanners," he said.

"The first person to know about the hostages saw emergency vehicles go by and turned on their scanner."

Video clips shot from front porches and by parents trapped in traffic trying to reach the school poured into Pinecam.com, he said.

As more people went to the Internet site, more scanners were turned on and a quarantined chat room opened, where information was checked and screened before it was posted, according to Oaks and Harrison.

"All these people are citizens and volunteers. We didn't want anyone to panic while it was going on," Harrison said.

Pinecam.com also had links to TheDenverChannel.com, KMGH Channel 7's Web site, which helped keep false information from getting posted, Harrison said.

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