By John Ullyot
Senior Vice President
Hill & Knowlton Washington

Digital and wireless communications have changed the demands of communications planning for a U.S. national emergency. The natural disasters that struck Burma and China earlier this year offer important lessons for such planning.

In Burma, where a military regime tightly controls information, the rest of the world struggled to learn the extent of the cyclone’s impact. By contrast, the devastating earthquake that struck China in May, where broad access to wireless and digital communications –- including cell phone cameras and streaming video – brought an entirely different dynamic and vast amounts of information flowed across China and around the world.

These events offer instructive lessons for those of us involved in communications planning. Broadly stated, because of such technology, emergency planners at all levels need to be prepared for an overabundance of information in a crisis; information that moves faster than any government agency, first responder or traditional news organization can move. If such technology and information is managed properly, the result can save lives. If not, the outcome can be confusion, chaos and panic.

In today's world, communications cannot be controlled, short of shutting down or disabling networks. Therefore, crisis communications planners need to test their plans and systems to ensure that they are designed for these new communications means, in order to be able to break through the attendant clutter and noise. Accurate and timely information can prove as vital as shelter, medical care and food supplies in times of disaster.

This is not to suggest, however, that we disregard the influence of the traditional media. As we saw on 9/11, in the event of a national emergency, people will tune in first to the broadcast media for immediate information, and will return to it on a regular basis for updates. In times of national emergency, television networks have become the modern day version of the old town green, where people gather to collect information, and to share experiences.

For these reasons, it is important that communications plans recognize the need to have a means of providing sufficient content and spokespersons to these networks so as to ensure a stream of accurate and contextual information.

Equally important, we must recognize the new world order in which digital communications such as cell phone cameras and blogs are increasingly becoming primary sources of information.

Photo courtesy of Lauren Burke

Research
In preparation for Hill & Knowlton’s testimony on communications planning for a nuclear terrorist attack in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security, we commissioned a nationwide survey to provide a benchmark of current awareness of issues relating to the hearing’s scenario -- the detonation of a lower-yield nuclear device in a major American city. The three key results were:

• Almost half of all Americans believe they are not equipped today with sufficient information about what they should do in the event of such an attack;
• The closer people are to an actual attack, the more likely they are to look to, and rely on, information from local emergency management authorities, as opposed to federal authorities and leaders; and
• Of all the types of information provided in the aftermath of an attack, people place a premium on messages that are, in order: (1) accurate, giving the full facts, no matter how negative, followed by (2) information that is timely. Comparatively few are interested in more abstract, general information such as how the nation will respond to the attack.

Roadmap for Emergency Communications
The research results and the observations from previous natural disasters offer important lessons for the U.S and governments around the globe. To save lives, governments should focus communications planning on a number of key areas, including the role of interagency coordination, pre-event message development, stakeholder identification, spokesperson identification and preparation, involving media and digital organizations, public-private partnerships, education and awareness efforts, the criticality of period immediately after an event, and training and lessons learned.

It is important that a government’s communications plans recognize the need to provide sufficient content and spokespersons to ensure a stream of accurate and contextual information; to achieve wholly aligned coordination and communication among federal, state and local authorities; and to provide people with critical, localized information to enable them to make key decisions in an emergency.

In addition to preparing their populations for such an emergency, government officials needs to ensure that communications planning recognizes the powerful technological and societal forces that are fundamentally changing the manner in which the public receives, values and shares information.

This article is drawn from the testimony that John delivered before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Securityand Governmental Affairs on May 15, 2008. His full written testimony can be found at http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/051508Ullyot.pdf