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Emergency response often bring images of search and rescue crews, Red Cross volunteers and firefighters to mind; but equally as important are staff who keep the public informed about all of the activities taking place to keep them safe. Often working behind the scenes, the Public Information Officer (PIO) facilitates public communications before, during, after and in between disasters, crafting and communicating critical messages to keep people safe from weather-related threats and informed on where to get help. PIOs are often responsible for interfacing with the media, local elected officials, state and federal agencies and other relevant organizations and agencies.

It’s an important role, yet in an emergency, incident commanders may call upon PIOs who are new to the role or not familiar with the subject, causing them to take on the position ─ perhaps for the first time ─ during a major natural disaster. Getting to know the basics of the PIO role ahead of disaster can allow those new to the position to quickly send effective messages to the public at all stages of disaster.

Depending on the size and impact of the disaster and the organization of your locality’s emergency operations plan (EOP), there can be a single PIO or a lead PIO with a team of assistants. During a 2015 flash flooding event in Hildale, Utah, that killed 12 residents, for example, Washington County, Utah, Emergency Manager Pete Kuhlmann recalls that the county had two to four public information officers – and sometimes as high as six – working out of the emergency operations center (EOC).

“For a major event we have on average at least four PIOs, except at the initial onset, and sometimes we’ll have as many as 12 or 13,” Kuhlmann explains. “They’re made up of all different walks of the public and private sector, and they meet on a regular basis and come together when an event occurs.”

Kuhlmann recommends getting to know the other PIOs in your area; you likely will be working with a PIO from the local police and fire departments, and from neighboring towns, counties or possibly the state, if the disaster impacts multiple localities. And even if you are the sole PIO for a disaster event, connecting with other local PIOs provides a learning opportunity to gather information specific to your community from local, experienced public communications professionals.

Enrolling in FEMA’s Public Information Officer training program, which is designed for new PIOs or those who have the role as a secondary function, can also help get you up-to-speed on the basics before a disaster hits.

Even if you’ve never served as the PIO during a natural disaster, you should keep an up-to-date list of contacts for local media outlets, elected officials and community organizations, such as homeowners associations, neighborhood associations and faith-based organizations. The elected officials and leaders of local organizations can help spread messages and gather information from their networks. And building relationships with local journalists will create clear points of contact and also encourage them to reach out to you directly instead of relying on alternative sources that can provide less accurate information.

Working with Local Media

During a disaster, it’s especially important to be proactive, not reactive when working with the local media. If you don’t keep them up-to-date, they will develop their own story – oftentimes not representative of the story you want them to tell.

To keep the media updated and ensure all sources receive consistent information, you should schedule regular press conferences and send updated press releases during a big event. Kulhmann says these activities should strike a balance between “the needs of the event and the needs of the media.” Make an effort to schedule press conferences in time for local media to meet their deadlines for the noon, evening or 10 p.m. news, but only if doing so doesn’t conflict with the incident or response efforts. This also helps to prevent the media from unexpectedly swarming the EOC or other municipal buildings. Use social media to provide updates of emerging situations and to supplement traditional media outreach.

“If you don’t set something up early and regular with the media, you’re going to find that the press is camped out in front of you, pushing microphones at you,” says Ken Parker, retired city manager of Port Orange, Florida. “The news is on a 24-hour cycle, and they’re going to demand that you give them information.”

Depending on the situation, you may be giving interviews to the media, or you may be working with your emergency manager or a community leader – such as a mayor, city or town manager, county administrator or chief elected official – to prepare them for a media interview.

During the Hildale flood, the town requested that the mayor of Hildale handle press conferences. “We came in and supported them on how to handle press conferences, providing organization and guidance and assisting with media staging areas,” Kuhlmann recalls.

When working with a local appointed or elected official to prepare for media interviews or a press conference, Kuhlmann offers several pieces of advice:

• Encourage the official to focus on the efforts that are being made and resources being used. “Oftentimes people don’t understand the scope of what’s going on,” Kuhlmann says. “We had a lot of people in the field performing search and rescue that the public didn’t know about.”
• Make sure community members are aware of the hazards. “Remind people they need to be safe themselves,” Kuhlmann recommends. “Even though they may want to help find a missing person or organize a search and rescue, they need to be made aware of the risk it poses to themselves.”
• Encourage them to stick to the facts. “A lot of what they [local leaders] say during an interview is driven off of questions that are asked where in order to answer them, you have to speculate,” Kulhmann says. Encourage anyone being interviewed by the media not to speculate – if they don’t know the answer, they should stick to the facts of what they do know.
• Provide them with the necessary facts so they can release accurate and up-to-date information.

Mike Goldberg, Emergency Manager for Linn County, Iowa, also recommends encouraging elected officials to focus on the care and concern aspect of the post-disaster messaging. “This is what the community wants to hear them say,” he explains. “Leave the details of what’s going to happen to incident command. Nobody wants to hear their mayor talk about equipment staging, they want to hear them say, ‘We’re here, city and county resources will be made available for assistance.”

Social Media

Although you may not be the one being interviewed, you’ll likely be responsible for updating the community through other communications streams. In most localities, social media is used to push important information quickly and concisely to the public. “It allows us to put out information in critical times when we’re busy trying to carry out emergency operations,” Kuhlmann explains.

Goldberg adds that you’ve got to start putting out what you know as soon as information comes in to keep citizens informed — if not, they’ll find it somewhere else. He also recommends including information on where the public should look for further messaging, such as your website, Twitter account or Facebook page, as the situation unfolds.

To help get information out quickly, you need to have – at minimum – active Facebook and Twitter accounts for your emergency management department before a disaster hits. Instead of having residents call into the EOC for information, you can post useful information, video clips, links and notifications on social media and direct the community to a social media page. You can also use social media to prevent false information from spreading. During the Hildale flood, the PIO monitored social media and used #rumorstop, when they found an error in reporting on social media.

Kuhlmann also recommends that the PIO use social media to notify local media outlets of when press releases will be put out and press conferences will be held. “It helps immensely so the media doesn’t overwhelm incident command,” he says.

And if you find yourself find yourself in the middle of a disaster without an emergency management social media account, coordinate with your town or city to use their social media streams.

During the Disaster

It’s ultimately the PIO’s responsibility to disseminate information to the public, however, all information released to the public must be approved by the incident commander – who is typically the emergency manager. At the EOC, the PIO or team of PIOs is often stationed next to the operations group so they’re aware of minute-by-minute decisions and have the most accurate information.

As the disaster unfolds, you’ll work with the incident commander to decide when and what information to release to the public. Again, social media will likely be your best bet to quickly reach a large portion of the public, but you should have other communications plans in place and be trained on how to use them. A reverse 911 system or mass notification system are useful tools to have available if you need to quickly notify the community to evacuate or take shelter, for instance.

Success during a disaster circles back to disaster planning. Goldberg says one of the most costly mistakes that can be made during disaster planning is not training your PIOs. “It’s very difficult to incorporate the PIO when something happens, and they haven’t trained with the team,” Goldberg says. “Know who’s doing what ahead of time, and make sure everyone has practiced it ahead of time.”

To handle the immediacy that communication during natural disasters requires, Goldberg recommends that localities setup a disaster response plan equipped to handle a tornado. “If you can handle a response to a tornado, you can definitely handle a slower-moving event, like a flood,” he says.

Effective Disaster Recovery Communications

As recovery efforts take shape, you will keep a constant stream of communications with the public – both to inform them of current recovery efforts, but also to provide reassurance that a sense of normalcy will be restored in day-to-day life. In a typical post-disaster press release, you should include steps the public can take to return to their normal lives, actions response agencies are taking, actions that businesses and industry should take, and also summarize the information and overall steps the government is taking.

Informing the community of the actions being taken by the government is one of the most effective ways to show residents progress: the tangible work being done to help get their lives back on track. Parker recommends that the PIO have a plan in place for how to communicate what the local, state and federal governments are doing during and after a disaster – whether it be a template that you can quickly plug information into or scheduling a daily briefing with a representative from the government.

“You can reduce your negative impact by making sure that before, during and after an event there is a flow of communications about what the governmental unit is doing,” Parker says.

You’ll also be in charge of notifying the community about events related to recovery, such as a post-disaster town hall meeting or donation drives, to ensure the community takes advantage of all recovery efforts. It’s also important to keep residents and business owners up-to-date on important deadlines and requirements regarding FEMA, HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program, and other grant programs. If residents fail to document damage sufficiently or miss a deadline, there’s no going back; it’s absolutely essential that you push constant reminders via all communications outlets.