Incident Command’s Role in a Post-Disaster Town Hall Meeting
Best Practices for Incident Commanders
A post-disaster town hall meeting is one of the first and most important opportunities for incident command – typically the emergency manager – to update the community on the recovery timeline, and help set the tone for the entire recovery process. Emotions will be running high; community members will demand answers on when they can get back into their homes and when their lives will return to normal. Incident command will give an update detailing recovery efforts being made to provide resources to the community, along with the status and timeline of disaster recovery.
Regardless of the disaster scenario, localities should hold a town hall meeting no later than a week to two weeks after rescue efforts are complete; after this time FEMA will have set up their disaster centers and started accepting applications. Holding the town hall meeting earlier on in the process prevents problems that can arise when FEMA representatives begin communicating with property owners — often prior to coordinating their message with that of the locality’s.
“One of our most important successes was orchestrating a town hall meeting in the weeks after our rescue efforts were complete,” says Suzonne Cowart, director of finance for the City of Central, which suffered from catastrophic flooding in August 2016. “We decided to hold the town hall meeting to disseminate as much information as we could to the citizens to help them deal with their individual situations.”
In fact, for communities participating in HUD’s Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program, it is a legal requirement to hold a public hearing, typically in the form of a town hall meeting.
In addition to the incident commander, typical presenters at a post-disaster town hall meeting include a top level local official, such as a mayor, chief elected official, city or town manager, or county administrator; a FEMA and/or HUD representative; and a representative from your regional state emergency management agency. As the point of contact for response and recovery field operations, it’s essential that you keep communication, collaboration and cooperation at the forefront of all your interactions with these stakeholders – even if tensions rise, remember that you are all working towards the goal of rebuilding a fragile community.
Planning for the Town Hall Meeting
Before the town hall meeting, FEMA and HUD’s message must be aligned with the locality’s priorities and the local disaster recovery approach. To help get all internal and external stakeholders on the same page, it’s recommended that the top-level local official organize a tabletop exercise with all representatives who will be present at the meeting. Incident command and other local officials should use the exercise as an opportunity to give feedback to FEMA, HUD and other state and federal representatives.
The locality’s message should come first and foremost; local leaders and incident command are familiar with the community, and likely community members themselves. And keep in mind that any information disseminated to the public at the town hall meeting – and throughout the duration of disaster response and recovery – must be approved by the incident commander. Although your public information officer will take a lead role in coordinating the town hall meeting, what information is and isn’t released to the public is ultimately your decision.
“Make sure that the public information officer or a local leader speaks with any FEMA or HUD representatives in advance to ensure their message will support the locality’s approach to recovery,” says Amanda Moody, director of economic development for the City of Central. “External representatives should not be allowed to communicate with constituents in the town hall meeting before this has been done.”
Because no two disasters are alike, you may also need to coordinate with a representative from the Small Business Association (SBA), for example, or from the state department of public works or transportation if something like debris removal or state road closures are at issue. In Central, the post-disaster town hall meeting included representatives from FEMA, SBA and the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management (GOHSEP).
Regardless of who presents at the post-disaster town hall meeting, the message sent to the community should be proactive, not reactive. Provide details to the community on the recovery plans in place to address specific components of disaster recovery.
Additionally, remember to ensure that all communications surrounding the post-disaster town hall meeting are in compliance with local, state and federal laws and regulations. As the chief commander during the disaster situation, all communications both in the field and with the public are under your oversight. Familiarize yourself with public communications laws prior to a disaster to avoid costly mistakes due to legal missteps that can happen when decisions are made quickly.
During the Meeting
Meetings can be focused on a single topic or a range of topics, from insurance, FEMA and CDBG-DR applications to restoring infrastructure and debris removal. They can also take unconventional formats; if power is not yet restored, localities may live stream the meeting using Facebook’s live streaming feature or another live streaming platform.
During the meeting, it’s important that the incident commander be compassionate and honest; residents are looking for the “human touch” to reassure them that their lives will return to normal. Incident Command should focus their communication on providing the factual information about current and future disaster recovery efforts; don’t make promises about the speed of recovery, as it’s often unpredictable. If a material recovery center is in place, you also should notify residents of where and how they can get supplies. Regardless of what you present on, your goal is to provide the public with the facts, albeit in a manner that calms them and reassures them that a sense of normalcy will resume throughout the community and that daily life will return to its pre-disaster state over time.
It’s also important to be prepared for a wide range of questions from community members; these will cover both specific and general concerns, many related to when – and if – residents will be able to get back into their homes.
“Questions ranged from FEMA mobile housing units, to FEMA grants and assistance and various information – some of it was even tax related,” recalls Cowart. “A lot of residents had questions about getting a mobile housing unit on their property, and whether or not they could have them in a flood zone.”
Click here to download a post-disaster town hall meeting agenda template, and here for press releases and agendas used by other localities.
After the Town Hall Meeting
After the meeting, the local media may ask for an interview from the incident commander or the top level local official. Make sure to coordinate with your public information officer prior to giving an interview – you will need to have the most up-to-date and accurate information. The media interview after the town hall meeting is an important opportunity to ensure the message the media sends is representative of incident command’s recovery efforts and goals. You want to be purveyor of information to the media; if not, the media will seek other, less reliable sources.
It’s also recommended that you work with your top level local leader to craft a weekly or bi-weekly update that your public information officer will disseminate to keep the community up to speed on the status of recovery.
In August 2016, over seven trillion gallons of rain fell in a 48-hour period in the city of Central, Louisiana, swallowing the city – and most of southern Louisiana – in more than four feet of water, and in some places up to six feet. The City of Central, which is located at the confluence of the Amite and Comite rivers, was still recovering from flash flooding that had occurred earlier in the year when the August flooding occurred.
More than 5,000 homes in the city sustained “substantial damage,” meaning that the damage was estimated to cost 50 percent or more of the structure’s value to repair. In total, 25,000 of the 27,000 residents of Central were impacted by the flood. While homeowners took a big hit from the storm, fewer than 50 businesses in Central were damaged.
“If this happens again, we’ll have to rethink everything,” says Kathi Cowen, IBTS/Central’s Floodplain Manager and GIS Specialist. “We hope we won’t see something of this scale again in our lifetimes.”
At the time of the flood, 75 percent of Central was in the 100-year flood zone, where there is a 1 percent chance of flooding each year and residents are required to carry private flood insurance. Yet 90 percent of the houses and businesses in the city sustained flood damage as a result of the August 2016 flooding, extrapolating the costs of damage due to the nearly 2,000 homes that did not have and were not required to have flood insurance.
The flood was the fourth most costly and the largest since Hurricane Sandy. In total, the flood damaged 55,000 southern Louisiana homes, and had initial damage costs estimated at $8.7 billion.