Author: Jim

Two quick notes from our neighbor to the south, Washington,
D.C. The first is a good thing, the second is up for some debate. The
official line is that it’s good, while some folks think it’s not so
good.

This article on
MSNBC gives the
low-down on the first:

The District of Columbia’s emergency management agency is making changes to the way it alerts the public about emergencies and will likely advise people to stay put rather than try to drive home during future disasters, officials said at a D.C. Council hearing Thursday.

This is a nice change because, to put it bluntly, emergency evacuation
sucks. Witness the Texas coast evacuation before Hurricane Rita, the
disaster that was Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001 and combine
that with the new recommendations for sheltering-in-place after a
radiological disaster. Especially in very crowded cities, evacuation
should be the last resort.

This change came about as a result of the August 23rd Virginia
earthquake, when traffic out of Washington was—again—disastrous.
There is some indictment of the authorities for not alerting the
public more quickly, but frankly, the public now understands that
evacuation is a first choice, so when something happens, and they
don’t get other information, they evacuate. (And boy, what a secondary
target that is!)

Glad to see the change; not only in messaging, but also in mindset.

The second piece today comes from
wtop.com, and is about a
change in staffing at DC F&EMS. Now, I try not to get into internal
fights, but this one has the potential to do some real damage in my
opinion. Pete Piringer, a spokesman for the Department, was recently
reassigned to the Office of the Secretary of DC. Again, not usually a
big deal, except for what happened a couple of weeks ago:

Piringer was prolific in his tweeting of breaking news and information, but sources inside the mayor’s office say there was blowback from other agencies that Piringer’s tweets were making them look slow and unresponsive.

and

Since the clampdown on the department Twitter account (@dcfireems), the feed has gone from tweeting real time information about fires and other incidents to a recent picture of Mayor Gray with McGruff the Crime Dog.

Why I combined these two (basically minor) stories into one was that
the thing that prompted the positive change in the first story is
exactly the thing that was shut down in the second story. DC F&EMS had
an amazing reputation in that community for pushing out information in
a timely and comprehensive fashion. “Gold standard,” is how a
colleague of mine put it once. And then the Administration closes that
down, while also saying that a lesson learned after the earthquake was
that they needed to communicate better and more quickly.

Just a lesson for everyone (yes, me too) who forgets that nothing—if
the allegations are true—trumps politics, not even emergencies. Be
careful out there, folks.

Dave Schrader, my local American Red Cross Communications Director, understands how social media is remaking how the press works better than almost anyone out there.

During a recent fire that displaced a number of residents in a local suburban town, Doylestown, Dave was deployed to the scene to coordinate information releases. He actively used social media throughout the response, posting images, tweeting updates and doing all of those things that I recommend all of us do. But he had this one tweet that really stuck with me. It was, in effect, a Twitter media advisory.

[View the story “Twitter Media Advisory” on Storify]

Intended only for members of the media, this post offered the media a direct line to a PIO on scene. As more and more reporters, editors and news directors use Twitter to discover and cover breaking news, this type of tweet will become de rigueur. And what a great way to do it, too. He not only mentions the hashtag that he’s been using so the media can catch up on what’s going on, but provides a way for them to get face-to-face updates while on scene of what was a considerable conflagration in the middle of the night. (Read that as: dark, wet, cold, lots of flashing lights, apparati, neighbors and families rushed out of their houses in the middle of the night.)

What a great best practice! Thanks for everything Dave!