By: Robert J. Terry

Ah, the steady hum of a Bobcat loader, the beep-beep-beep of a snowplow — music to my ears and all audible outside my house Tuesday afternoon as tireless Howard County road crews finally freed my 100-townhome community from another day of being trapped by three feet of snow.

Other than walking, residents had no way in or out, and we were getting anxious. “Serious ‘Lord of the Flies’ potential here,” I tweeted Monday night.

Using Twitter was just one way I stayed connected to the outside world in between shoveling shifts and trying to help my wife think of new ways to keep three small children occupied while snowbound. When Snowmageddon 2010 is all said and done, it will have taught me many things, such as the need to overstock on my favorite domestic lager when a 90 percent chance of “paralyzing” snowfall is in the forecast. But what will really stay with me is how indispensable Internet technology and social media have become in business and everyday life.

Twitter and Facebook weren’t around in the President’s Day storm of 2003. High-speed and wireless Web access weren’t even commonplace at the time. But since Friday night I’ve received a steady stream of Twitter updates from @kenulman — Howard County Executive Ken Ulman — on the progress of county road crews and efforts being made locally and across the state to weather the storm. When the county’s snowplow tracker Web site was down for a time Monday, Ulman tweeted it.

He wasn’t alone. Information on school closings, power outages, traffic accidents, transit service schedules and anything having to do with #mdsnow was shared by @insidecharmcity, @constellationeg and a host of others.

More than the raw flow of information, though, was the ability to connect in misery with others, and to try and laugh about it and keep things in perspective.

My Facebook friends in Northern Virginia posted a steady stream of updates Saturday from their mobile devices as they grappled with losing power to their increasingly cold homes — and that snapped me out of my streak of self-pity pretty quick.

“Can see his breath inside his house, not good” from one friend was followed an hour later by “just watched a guy get stuck on our street in a little, non-four wheel drive car. Grabbed a shovel, and headed out, trying to decide whether to dig him out or hit him with the shovel.”

So how about you: Did your friends across the country send online well wishes and notes of thanks for posting pictures on Facebook? Did Google Chat come in handy for those of you forced to work remotely? Or did you find the Web and its platforms providing too much information, to the point where it sparked more anxiety than comfort?