In the Eye of the Storm: Public Servants at Their Best

Exploring the remarkable work of crisis communicators during Hurricane Beryl. Part 1 of a series

The Secret Service’s baffling failure to protect a former president from getting shot at a political rally is the latest high profile screwup giving credence to the idea we are governed by incompetents, as highlighted in this week’s TL;dr.

Alas, there’s a kernel of truth in that sentiment. There are a few wackadoodles in government, certainly. And, there is an ever-increasing amount of silly behavior in our national politics. But a bigger and more important reality exists: In our local communities, we are served by dedicated professionals passionate about government service. In my experience, they shine the brightest in the darkest times. Good Government Files exists to share that good news.

In the next two newsletters, we’ll highlight the stories of two exceptional public communicators who excelled before, during, and after Hurricane Beryl ravaged the Houston area on July 8. The storm left over 2.6 million people without power for days (as of July 25, some still remain without power) in the sweltering summer heat. According to The Texas Tribune, at least 23 people died from the storm itself and the ensuing power outages.

For those of you unfamiliar with Houston summers, let me provide some insight as someone born and raised there.

Losing power in Houston is not just incredibly uncomfortable; it also means all the food in your refrigerator spoils. After a hurricane, you’re left with tree limbs and sometimes entire trees that need to be sawed up and hauled away. It’s a colossal mess, and people rightly expect their government agencies to help clean it all up and get life back to normal.

We’ll start with the story of how The Woodlands Township, a suburb north of Houston, handled the impact. Next time, we’ll look at life in the big city from the perspective of the City of Houston’s Office of Emergency Management public information officer, Brent Taylor.

Programming note: GGF will be taking its annual beach sabbatical next week, so we'll be back with Part 2 on Friday, Aug. 9.

The crisis communications nightmare scenario: No power

Located about 30 miles north of downtown Houston, The Woodlands is a master-planned community with a population of 118,000. Created by billionaire oilman and developer George Mitchell in the 1970s, The Woodlands is dedicated to preserving its natural character in the piney woods while also welcoming business and tourists. The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion is one of the nation’s busiest outdoor performing arts and entertainment venues. It’s a unique and appealing community.

LeaAnn Petersen, CPC, CPM, is the township’s director of communications, with nearly 20 years of experience. I’ve known LeaAnn for most of those years. She’s a consummate professional. Whether they know it or not (some don’t, as you’ll see below) the residents of The Woodlands are lucky to have her.

Here’s LeaAnn, taking home another award for her outstanding work.

She spent a good part of her career in the City of Seabrook, which sits on Nassau Bay between Houston and Galveston. Which means she’s no stranger to dealing with hurricanes. She managed crisis communications for Seabrook when Hurricane Harvey dumped 50 inches of rain on the community over five days in 2017, causing unprecedented flooding for a part of the world that’s used to getting lots of rain. Just not Biblical amounts.

Beryl spent the days immediately prior to landfall as a tropical storm before strengthening to hurricane force as it hit the Texas coast near Matagorda. So, you’ll forgive LeaAnn and pretty much everyone else in the Houston area involved in crisis planning for assuming that Beryl wouldn’t have a significant impact.

“That’s what everybody was thinking even before it came on land,” she said. “We were like, OK, well, it’s still just going to be a category one, even if it hits us. So, you know, we’ll implement our emergency operations center, but we don’t think it’s going to be that bad.”

What no one expected was the breadth and duration of the power outages caused by Beryl’s sustained winds of 80 mph. It’s not uncommon to lose power during storms. It is decidedly uncommon to lose power for more than one week, much less two.

When your job entails getting the word out as quickly as possible to a community that needs answers, not being able to post something on your website or social media is the worst-case scenario. When Beryl hit, even cell towers went down, which meant no access to the internet from your phone.

What to do? Go analog.

LeaAnn, working first from the emergency management operations center and then Town Hall — both of which had generators — created and printed out more than 1,000 information flyers. Elected leaders took on the task of handing them out at area grocery stores.

Here’s the flyer she put out the day after the storm hit.

This, dear reader, is a work of art. On one well-designed page, she’s giving residents actionable information from the township — trash and brush pickup became HUGE issues — while providing phone numbers and website addresses so they could find trusted sources for other needed services. She’s letting them know what’s resident responsibility and what’s the township’s responsibility. It’s succinct, with a clean design. Just outstanding.

It was effective, too. LeaAnn was able to track around 600 scans on the QR code for the city’s Alert Center on its website, so folks were using it.

And folks needed the help. As noted above, The Woodlands is aptly named. Pictures help tell the story.