A hotel collapse in Schroon Lake?  Four people and a baby injured? 10,000 without power? That was the buzz on Twitter on Tuesday, as several Tweets gave graphic descriptions of the doom and gloom Schroon was dealing with after a “severe storm” ravaged our lakeside hamlet.

Except there was no hotel collapse or power outage or any injuries we know of that day (maybe a bad case of sun burn, perhaps).

Turns out the “Schroon Lake Disaster” was a lesson for graduate journalism students at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University. The students attended a faux news conference and using the power of the social media site Twitter, used 140 characters to get the news out.

 “This was part of a class exercise for graduate students in our summer news reporting class,” teacher Jon Glass told us in a Tweet yesterday. We asked Jon why he chose Schroon Lake and are awaiting a Tweet back.

Glass teaches a class on Web Journalism and Innovaton which focuses on social media and story telling. At least seven tweets contained graphic details about the storm. The best one by far, was Tweeted Emily Shearing

Emilyshearing Crying baby helps save lives of victims trapped under collapsed wing of historic Schroon Lake hotel. #new6052

 And then there was this revealing Tweet, about how folks deal with disasters

WriterAndrew Andrew Johnson Highlight of press conference on awful storm damage at Schroon Lake: traumatized son of victim read a poem. Details forthcoming. #new6053

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