Imagine being PIO for an incident that includes the evacuation of 50,000 local residents and and a real threat of major explosion or chemical release that could cause massive damage to homes and businesses. That' black swan scenario is what PIO Greg Barta was facing with his team at Orange County Fire Authority this past Memorial Day weekend when a runaway chemical reaction threatened their community. Greg serves as lead Public Information Officer (PIO) for the Orange County Fire Authority and gives us an inside look at how the team organized and managed communications to local residents and media around this incident.
We walk through what it looks like to staff up communications on a holiday weekend when you only have a few full time shift PIOs who just completed their PIO training the day before the incident. Talk about being tossed into the deep end of the pool!
Greg shares with us his strategy for relying on videos and social media to communicate critical incident updates to the evacuated communities. This proved an effective strategy, largely owing to the communications skills and empathy of the incident commanders and fire chief who appeared in the videos.
We also dig into the mechanics that keep a unified message intact: media advisories, daily talking points as living documents, and a fast approval loop with unified command so information moves quickly without getting sloppy. Finally, we talk media relations when the story goes national, reporters are clustered at the command post, and a press conference expands to nine speakers, plus the pre briefing steps that kept the event controlled and on message.
This is part one of a multi part deep dive. Subscribe, share this with a communicator who needs it, and leave a review.
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