When the Ship Hits the Sand, Are You Ready To Respond?

Being prepared isn't just for the Boy Scouts; it's a must-have for anyone working in local government

The time’s coming when you’ll be in the splash zone when these two meet. Credit: Mark Lynch

It’s not an “if” you’ll have to deal with a crisis in your local government career. It’s a “when.”

In my time with the City of Round Rock, Texas, here’s a sampling of the kinds of crises I was blessed with:

• A police chief accused of an affair with the wife of one of his officers

• Multiple instances of winter weather that turned local roads into ice rinks (which we Central Texas drivers navigate as if we were toddlers on Quaaludes)

• A wastewater plant failure that resulted in a fish kill in a section of a creek beloved by local anglers

• A wastewater lift station failure that resulted in a dozen or so homeowners getting an up close and personal look at (and whiff of) their neighbors’ poop

• Officer-involved shootings (of people and pets. Much more vitriol on social media over the pets.)

• Employee theft

• Multiple instances of flooding

• One instance of winter weather that put the entire state of Texas into sub-freezing temperatures for a full week

• Pandemics (yes, plural; how quickly we forget the swine flu pandemic of 2009. Of course, younger readers may still have been in middle school at the time.)

Some I handled better than others. The first one on the list was a real 💩 show. I don’t think I’d been on the job more than six months, if that. And it showed. I made the mistake of thinking my former colleagues at the local newspaper would believe me when I told them nothing really had happened. Oy. I never made that mistake again. The last two happened toward the end of my career, and were handled much more capably.

While experience is a great teacher, I wholeheartedly suggest NOT relying on it when it comes to crisis communications. The good news is there’s no need to. I did a quick Google search and happened upon this page from the Florida League of Cities with 31 links to articles (including eight on how to prepare before a crisis, nine on what to during a crisis and four on what do after the crisis!) along with three archived webinars.

For you, my loyal GGF readers, I will boil down what I believe are the most important aspects of crisis communications and share what I think are some of the best sources for more information and training.

First, think

You can’t prepare for every possible crisis scenario, but some are more likely than others. Most local governments are already doing this in the form of Hazard Mitigation Planning, which identifies natural disaster risks and vulnerabilities that are common to your area. After identifying these risks, you develop long-term strategies for protecting people and property from similar events.

Obviously, you do this when skies are blue, the weather is warm and breezes are gentle. The good folks at FEMA refer to this as the 95/5 concept. To wit:

The 95/5 concept directly correlates to the non-emergency and emergency ratio of PIO activities. Inevitably, about 95% of the work PIOs perform will be completed in non-emergency times, while typically about 5% directly related to incident response or recovery.

The activities a PIO engages in during a non-emergency posture (95%) has a significant impact on how successful they will be in the 5% spent in emergency response and recovery.

To which I say, amen and amen.

Next, prepare

One thing you won’t have time for when natural disaster hits is to craft messages from scratch. After thinking about known potential crises, take the time to prepare pre-scripted templates for the most likely natural disaster events in your area. FEMA offers this template, which is super helpful for creating messages in advance.

Related to message prep is making sure you’ve got lists of news media emails and phone numbers, i.e., the folks you’re going to send those messages to. It’s unwise to rely on any one medium to get your message out. If things really get out of hand, you may not have access to the internet and won’t be able to update your website. Or if things get downright biblical, your website may get overwhelmed with traffic and crash.

The social media platform formerly known as Twitter should be a go-to, especially in the early hours of a crisis. I know some of you may not like what Elon has done to it now that it’s X, but I think it’s still your best outbound comms tool in a crisis. Reporters and newsrooms are following government accounts on X, and it’s still the most efficient way to get succinct messages out to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.

What will those messages be? Great question, which is why the next step in your preparations should be to have a small team identified who will be responsible for crafting and delivering messages when crisis hits. And I’m not talking just weather events here. This team will need to be assembled ASAP when any event occurs that has the potential to negatively impact the reputation of your organization. This collection of folks goes by various names — Rapid Response Team, Crisis Team — but here’s who needs to be on it:

• Public information officer

• Subject matter expert

• Legal expert (yes, a lawyer)

• Organizational decision maker, i.e., the person at the top of the org chart or their designee

While that team is meeting to discuss what to say, make sure you’ve got someone monitoring social media and the news media. The team needs to have awareness of what’s being said about the crisis.

You need to get a message out in the first hour of a crisis. Time is of the essence. Your organization has a responsibility to fill the information vacuum with known facts and relevant information. If you don’t do it, this guy is happy to do it for you.

Don’t let be the guy that let that guy set the narrative.

Thankfully, most agencies have learned the lesson and are now prepared to put out a written statement quickly. Some have taken it one step further and will get a video out ASAP. Mark Weaver, who does media training and consulting, says the fast-response video has become best practice, especially for law enforcement.

“I'm noticing that many of the larger cities are really prepared to do a video quickly that puts the incident in context, which means they have thought through not just how to put together a video, but the sort of things that the public might be interested in seeing on that video,” Mark said. “And they have a media trained police chief or sheriff who is able to narrate through it and then release it very quickly. And that was not done ten years ago.”

I’ve seen Mark speak twice on crisis comms, and he’s truly outstanding. Tons of experience in the field as a PIO, and he also happens to be a practicing attorney. Here’s his four-step template¹ for preparing that initial message.

1. Remind our Crisis/Rapid Response team (especially your lawyer) that saying “no comment” is the same as saying, “we’re guilty.”

2. Until most facts are known, don’t accept blame or accuse others.

3. Determine three major points. Avoid jargon. Each point must:

   • be true

   • show your compassion

   • show that you’re gathering information and want a solution

4. If you have little or conflicting information, use a general response (often referred to as a holding statement) until more facts are confirmed and can be shared.

Now, speak

Once your team has agreed on the three major points, it’s the PIO’s job to write up a brief statement. Mark recommends 100 words or less. Have the team review it and then get moving. Post it on your website and social media channel and send it to local news media.

Mark recommends you then let the news media and the public know to follow your social media channels for the latest information. Update the feed regularly.

Finally, if the media are gathering then the PIO needs to prepare an area for a news conference. If you’ve got visuals, bring ‘em. Handouts are super helpful to reporters, who are also working quickly. Mark recommends that whoever is speaking to the media restate the released statement — don’t read it word for word, but don’t go beyond it, either. If you take questions, limit answers to the substance of the original statement.

Mark and his team have put together a 15-item checklist you can use to help prepare you during a crisis. I recommend printing it out or bookmarking it so you can refer to it quickly when the heat is on. Having checklists is a best practice for crisis comms.

Then, what?

Keep rounding up information. Facts will become known. Verify those facts. And if you didn’t do any media interviews when the first statement went out, you’ll need to prep for the ones that will shortly follow.

Here, again, preparation is key. Make sure you’ve got the following types of messages ready to go. I’m using terms from Predictive Media Training (folks I highly recommend if you need media training — see below) but the ideas are universal to crisis communications.

• Head and Tail Message: This is the headline. It’s the most important message you want the audience to hear.

• Fact & Figure Message: Have some data points to support your main message.

• People & Place Message: Give an example or anecdote that is related to your main message.

Then think about the absolute worst question a reporter could ask you. How would you answer that? What responses can you provide, or how can you provide a bridge to a positive message?

Some effective bridging statements include: “What’s important to remember is …” or “What we’re focused on is …” or “Let me respond by saying …”

Some of us in the PIO role are former reporters who are sympathetic to the needs of the news media. You need to kill that sympathy when your organization is dealing with a crisis. Stick to the main message and keep to the facts. You control the message — it’s why you’ve prepared!

Lest you think I’m implying we shade the truth or sugarcoat bad news, you’re obviously a new subscriber to Good Government Files. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: if you’ve screwed up, admit it. Rip that Band-Aid off and get it over with it. For some folks in government (read: politicians), they think it’s a good strategy to never admit something has gone wrong. But we’re in the public affairs business, where credibility is king. If you want people to believe you, then you need to tell them truth. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.

Mark recalls a conversation he had with an experienced PR pro when he was looking for a new job after losing his PIO gig at the Justice Department. It wasn’t performance related. There was a new administration, so presidential appointees like Mark were invited to find new work, as it were. He was in his late 20s and had fielded hundreds of media calls, had done national TV interviews, etc. He considered himself a pretty big deal, a real seasoned pro in the media relations world.

“I took an interview with a woman for a PR job, and she was a couple of decades older than I was, and she asked me a question,” Mark recalls. “She said, ‘Now, let me just give a hypothetical, Mark. Let’s say our client knows something bad has happened in their organization and it’s not going to look good. Should we go out and tell our stakeholders about this affirmatively, or should we just get our talking points in order and then wait for the press to call?’ And being the sort of unschooled, in crisis strategy, young person that I was, I chose the latter. I said, ‘Well, of course, why would we ever tell people bad news about ourselves? We would wait.’ 

“And she very kindly — I don't know her name, I didn't get the job — very kindly said, ‘Well, actually, there is a best practice, and there is something called the primacy bias. And whenever we can shape the message first, we’re more likely to be believed. And so actually, I think the right answer is for you to break your own bad news.’ I now know that is absolutely the gold standard advice. I just didn’t know it at the time.” 

Now you do, too, dear reader if you didn’t already.

Have a formal plan

You need a crisis communications plan, one that’s approved by elected leaders. Mark explains why formal approval is vital.

“In the custom-made plans that we help cities and counties and local governments craft,” Mark says, “I will insist that we put in somewhere on the first page or two the following sentence: ‘We will communicate to our stakeholders, and we will never say no comment.’”

With that statement in the approved plan, if your attorney — or anyone else, for that matter — objects to putting out a statement, you simply let them know that is a violation of a policy that was approved at the highest level.

 “Lawyers tend to be the biggest roadblock towards effective crisis communications, largely because lawyers have been trained to freeze the facts as they find them so things can't get worse,” Mark says. “That is a ‘court of law focused’ mentality that ignores the court of public opinion. There are more judges in the court of public opinion than there are in the court of law. There are no appeals in the court of public opinion and there are no rules of evidence. Anybody who’s been around government and crisis and media for any period of time will acknowledge those truths immediately.”

Take exercises seriously

This is my last must when it comes to crisis management. If you’ve got emergency management professionals in your organization, you will no doubt be conducting regular tabletop exercises. You may very well be doing regional exercises as well, with neighboring jurisdictions. I certainly hope so.

In my experience, most folks outside of the emergency management and firefighting professions tend to roll their eyes when it comes to tabletops. It’s not the “real deal” so they see it as a waste of time. That’s a mistake. Trust me, when a “real deal” crisis hits you will be damn glad you took those tabletops seriously. You’ll have your pre-scripted message templates in hand, ready to go. You’ll have your media list in hand, ready to go. You’ll have your what to do checklist, in hand, guiding your steps in the first minutes and hours of a crisis, when many are caught flatfooted. Decision makers should not be waiting on you when it’s time to take action. Your value to the organization will be readily apparent because you will be able to deliver, under pressure, like the true professional that you are.

Resources

If you’re looking at training — and you should be — a good place to start is with FEMA PIO training. There’s Basic, Advanced and Master levels. If you’re new to government work, the Basic course is essential. You need to understand this thing called Incident Command and the vital role you play when disaster hits your jurisdiction. I completed the Advanced PIO training with lots of my Central Texas peers as part of a regional effort. It was well worth the week spent at the Emergency Management Institute.

For more sophisticated media relations training, the aforementioned folks at Predictive Media Training are terrific. I’ve seen Predictive VP Russ Rhea present at conferences and he is outstanding. You will leave that training with the tools to handle whatever may come your way.

For more advanced thinking on crisis comms, I recommend Jeff Hahn’s book, Breaking Bad News. Jeff’s the Principal at Predictive Media as well as Hahn Public and has done deep dives into crisis communications.

Mark Weaver’s firm, Communications Counsel, offers a wide array of services on crisis communications and beyond.

Last but certainly not least are my friends and colleagues at DFW StratComm, who can help you put together a crisis communications plan as well as run tabletop training exercises for your organization. You will not find more experienced or customer-focused professionals.

Onward and Upward.

1. I’m not giving away Mark’s intellectual property here. Mark gives it away himself when he speaks, in the form of laminated 4x9 cards with the information above — and more — that you should have in the bag you carry your laptop in.