A winter storm can shut down roads, close schools, and push a city into that familiar grind of scraping ice, checking pipes, and hoping the power holds. In Memphis, it also sparked a different kind of mess – one that played out online, then spilled into real life with accusations, outrage, and talk of threats.
In a report for WREG News Channel 3, Stephanie Scurlock described how two Memphis City Council members – Pearl Walker and Yolanda Cooper-Sutton – shared social media posts questioning whether the snow that fell across the city was “real” or possibly man-made.
It’s the kind of claim that spreads fast on social media because it’s weird, provocative, and easy to argue about. But as Scurlock explains it, what might have started as online chatter quickly turned into a public controversy, especially because it involved elected officials while Memphis was still digging out from one of its more significant winter storms in recent years…