Similar, there was a fire around my office a week ago and within minutes there were an image on twitter. Within 30 minutes multiple ones from various angles.

Granted, it was the first time I ever went to Twitter for something like this, but I knew that it was /the/ place for the most up to date information.

And I try to avoid Twitter as much as possible, too annoying to read in there.

Severe weather (tornadoes) is also the most important benefit I get from Twitter.

Generally speaking, it's great for aggregating witness accounts of a real-time event that's going on.