Riots = Hyperlocal Traffic

That graph is the rather stunning [traffic impact of the London Riots on the Brockley Central blog](http://brockleycentral.blogspot.com/2011/08/riot-urls.html):

The London riots sent traffic through the roof, with 35,000 visitors on the Monday, when riots in Lewisham took place and 45,000 visitors on the Tuesday, when Brockley Kate provided coverage of the aftermath and we provided a live report, during which mostly nothing happened. On a good day, the site normally gets 2,000 visitors.

I’m not surprised – as someone who was monitoring the situation in Lewisham very closely, Brockley Central was the only reliable source of information when the national media was largely ignoring what was happening in Lewisham.