Tips for State Agencies: Communicating with Stakeholders and the Media
Communication and coordination between state and local agencies before, during and after a natural disaster is critical, yet state representatives and local agencies often find themselves lacking sufficient communications plans and struggling to communicate efficiently during an incident. Use these tips to identify common areas of disconnect and improve your communication with local officials and agencies during a natural disaster.
Run messages by a local official.
- Be aware that state terms used to describe navigation routes and road names can differ from terminology used by locals.
- Ask a local official to review messages to ensure they’re on par with local terminology.
Live stream press conferences.
- Instead of limiting your press conference schedule to once or twice per-day at peak news hours, consider streaming press conference on Facebook Live as information comes in so constituents don’t need to wait until the evening or nighttime news.
Use social media for timely messages.
- Send timely messages out via social media, like Twitter and Facebook, as information comes in.
- Begin posts with “IMPORTANT MESSAGE,” and end them with “PLEASE SHARE,” to encourage constituents to help spread information.
- Work with local PIOs to coordinate and develop a consistent message.
Identify a single point of contact at the local level.
- Communication disconnects often arise between state and local agencies. Encourage local agencies, such as law enforcement and public works, to assign liaisons to logistics, the PIO and other important state operations centers.
Provide a single point of contact to localities.
- Consider assigning an intergovernmental liaison to communicate with localities before, during and after a disaster.
- Before a disaster, the state liaison should identify a point of contact for each county and compile a list of up-to-date contact information.
- During a disaster, the liaison should contact all impacted local and state emergency management officials on a daily basis to vet them on the current situation.