Ep. 7 - Emergency Preparedness & Crisis Communication

We need to provide people information about like, you know, where their money's being spent, why it's being spent, and why it's a good investment. Right? I mean, that means transparency. It means relationships. And it means you need to have trust. So that's something that you build over time. It's not something that is gained on an initial relationship with a viewer. That type of civic communication that can come from local government is useful if you've, done the job of building trust. and just in general I think being proactive as opposed to being reactionary, right? Right. So, like, you know, what are the, what are the food shelters that provide emergency food assistance? How do you find them? Who do you talk to? Mm hmm. How do you tell their story to make sure that not everyone goes to the same one, right? Same thing's true with housing. understanding how emergency housing would work. Who you talk to. All that stuff, you can't really do in a crisis. You need to actually, probably, map things out ahead of time and have the conversations with residents ahead of time to determine what they, what information they need to know to make sure that, uh, they're taken care of in a time of crisis. This podcast is for city communications teams and video professionals in government. We talk about expanding service delivery with video and streaming, media accessibility, gear, broadcast and streaming workflows, and more. It's all right here on the Government Video Podcast. All right, we're back on another episode of the Government Video Podcast, and we've got Mike Wassenaar back with us. He's the President and CEO of the Alliance for Community Media, and, today, we want to talk about how folks using video in government can use that in emergency situations or just emergency preparedness situations. What's up with you right now, Mike? What have you been up to? Well, um, this last week I've actually been, um, I've been doing some side visits here in the Twin Cities in Minneapolis, St. Paul. Checking in with some of the members of the Alliance for Community Media and actually talking with some folks who are like building new services. It's interesting because there's been like a sort of a generational change with a lot of, operations having leadership in place for 20 years, 25 years, folks retire, new folks come on board. So it's been a lot of relationship building that I've been doing with, with operations with folks who are bringing in some new energy, uh, some enthusiasm for the work that's maybe a little different from their predecessors. And they're trying to focus on how to, deliver meaningful content to residents, how to do that in concert with their, their local partners, both their nonprofit partners, uh, education partners, and, and, you know, public safety, public safety partners. Yeah, exactly. It's interesting, um, one of the facilities here just got a low power FM license so that they will, actually they have two main cities that they serve. They put in an application for each city. One of them's been approved, one of them's pending, um, so they're now in the process of trying to figure out like. What should we be doing with a local radio station that's providing non commercial information for residents locally? And they're in a, they're in an inner ring suburb that really doesn't get much information at all about local businesses, local non profit events. You know, charity needs, um, all the sort of after school activities that happen with, with, you know, kids in a community. Yeah. And it's not a small city. It's like a city of 60, 000 people. And it's, it shouldn't be so hard to find these, this information, right? Right. So, right. So, uh, that's the thing I think is very interesting about some of the examples here in Minneapolis St. Paul. Some of them like CCX in, uh, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota have devoted a long time building audiences provide news and information about what's happening in those bedroom communities of Minneapolis. So much so, that they get larger viewership than commercial television does locally. That's impressive. And, and, and, uh, local police and fire. Know that they're the go- to trusted entity when they need to get a message out. You've already, you've brought us right back around without me having to do anything. I'm a media professional. I understand these things. So I, so it's very, it's, it's, it's really interesting. I think it's important to make sure that we're building trusted resources that are seen to be providing information that's useful for people. Not just, not just one sided, here's the public relations information that we need to give you about all the great things that local government's doing. We need to provide people information about like, you know, where their money's being spent, why it's being spent, and why it's a good investment. Right? I mean, that means transparency. It means relationships. And it means you need to have trust. So that's something that you build over time. It's not something that is gained on an initial relationship with a viewer. Yeah, so let's talk about that. What have you seen and how are these messages getting delivered? Well, I mean, some of them are, you know, delivered through standard PSA formats that you see in television, uh, I think a lot of folks are trying to think through how podcasting works for appointment delivery or alternatively, inbox delivery. Mm hmm. We actually see that where what's happening rather than like meeting coverage, you actually see like, subscription services for email delivery set up. That if I wanna know about housing issues going on right in my community, I can get housing updates on demand, on demand. Yep. Right. Um, not on demand. It's pushed into my inbox. Oh, right. Yeah. So it's not even, it's not even like forcing me to be able to think about going there. It's like I sign, I want to know about the local high school. I want to know about environmental issues like, so for example, in coastal communities, you know, flooding, environmental issues are kind of like front and center in in terms of life of the economy. And getting a notification in the moment is critical. Correct. So having that kind of either SMS, subscription service, or alternatively inbox service on email for logger form video is extremely useful. What about apps? Apps too will do that, particularly if you enable the notification. That ends up being the issue, particularly when it comes to emergency notifications. Yep. Right? Yep. Right? Um, I think the other thing to know too with you know, the phone system is that if you're in a hurricane zone or a tsunami zone, you're going to get notification from the civil, the civil defense authority locally through your phone. The bigger issue in some respects is not that, you know, the, the cell tower is up and you're getting the SMS warning through civil defense. It's understanding what to do. When a crisis occurs and that's communication that happens ahead of time and so right so how are you seeing like PEG stations or their community media civic civic information organizations carrying this out for the residents. So like you see this in some of the some of the smaller communities in in New England, where you've got communication that's happening to show folks where to go in case of an emergency, to actually talk about a path, a pathway. So that might start with like a PSA to begin with. Or alternatively, it's a video showing you the, showing you where the hurricane shelter is. Okay. Uh, showing you, you know, showing you ways to go out of town if you need to go out of town to ensure that there's not a jam, a log jam, a cart, a traffic jam of money. Yeah. Proper evacuation protocol. Right. How to prepare for, and the thing that video can do that like audio can't do is it will show people what they need. It will show people, it's a picture says a thousand words. It's a show and tell medium. And so you've got the ability to be able to do this. Our, our, our colleague, Jim Palmer in Peabody Mass does a lot of this work in terms of coordinating, what they do with local video as well as with like emergency response so that the police and fire all are on the same page. And then you've got communication that goes out to residents ahead of time in case something's happening and you have to have that trusted resource that people know to depend upon. And I love stories like that because we see all over the place that there might be this video department or, or PEG station that has existed for a long time and there's plenty of people in the local government that don't know about it and that can definitely vary based on like the city size and a lot of other factors, but to see, um, these organizations that are proactively reaching out Mm hmm. And putting these partnerships in place, building these relationships, I think is so important. Hi, Michelle here. We hope you're enjoying this episode of the government video podcast. I'm taking a short break from today's discussion to remind you that this podcast is brought to you by Cablecast Community Media. We're a cross platform video solution from Tightrope Media Systems. And despite our name, we help cities, towns, and other local media organizations get their video to viewers on all digital platforms, including cable. If your organization operates a cable channel, um, but we help you reach residents whenever and wherever they watch. Be it on your city's website, on mobile streaming apps, on over the top platforms like Fire TV, Roku, Apple TV, or even on their mobile phone. And we even help you push your content live to social media. We've been helping small non commercial stations launch professional, affordable, and efficient video initiatives for over 25 years. And our customers love us because we have great customer support and we have fierce industry loyalty. So if your organization is in need of cross platform video automation and delivery for local coverage of city council meetings or other local events, reach out to our team and schedule a demo today. And if you do, be sure to mention that you heard about it here on the Government Video Podcast to receive a special discount. That's all for me for right now. Back to the episode. Well, I think, you know, we don't, we don't have the, the ability to see this directly here, uh, in Minnesota, but, you know, we have colleagues in Hawaii that have been doing a lot of emergency communication to residents post catastrophe. So, you know, so in 20, you know, August of 2023, the Lahaina fire devastated Maui. It's hard to describe what that meant to both the life of the community, but then also the, the displacement that occurred. It was like 19, 000 people lived in, in, in that area, in that area. Um, and they're all homeless now. So being able to, you know, Get to staging areas, finding, um, accommodations, finding food, being able to take care of like, you know, where your kids, kids are going to school, how that all works. All that stuff has been sort of like the post, the post communication work that like our colleagues at Akaku in, in Maui have been doing in concert with local governments. Mm hmm. And Akaku is the, the community media operation there in Maui. Correct. They're a, they're a non profit. They operate, they operate the local government channels as well as, um, as well as education and cultural programming and public access programming. The thing that's been very interesting is that they've been able to be like an intermediary with different levels of government. So like FEMA has different presentations and they've been able to get information from FEMA. Uh, the state has different presentations and different purview that they've been able to get information there. The county is the local level of government there. They've been able to talk to, to the county in different areas and then even go down to the level of, um, talking with people at the local townships about sort of like issues that they're seeing to be able to feed that information back up to, uh, emergency response officials so that they know better what those community needs are. So they've been actually been doing a lot of work with that kind of community engagement as those discussions take place. Uh, and it's, uh, so it's like post and it's post emergency and pre emergency work that we're seeing less of the, less of the immediate and more of the making sure that people know what to do and, and then government agencies at different levels have the ability to respond to community needs. And what's more with that, um, I love Hawaii as an example because I think it's, it's the unique culture there that is first and foremost seeking to be prepared, seeking to take care of each other in a, in a situation that can be, tricky. You know, they're all separated by bodies of water, they're not all on the same island. Sometimes you need the inter island communication, um, and they, they want to be prepared for that. And I think that drives this sort of top down, mission driven, uh, work that it's like, okay, this is, this is the goal, like communication, service delivery, not losing the ability to reach everyone. Um.. If a natural disaster were to recur is the priority. Now let's just like take advantage of all the tools. Let's take advantage of all the, the coordination protocols to get that done. And, and they do such a great job. They've done, they've done a really good job. I think the thing that to underline is that throughout the history of the islands, there have been a series of natural disasters. Mm-Hmm. that really have upended different parts of the economy. Tidal waves have wiped out economies, you've got now the fire in Lahaina is going to be affecting the economy of Maui probably for the next 15 years, and you've got to be able to connect with people and respond so that they're taking advantage of the resources that are available. Yeah. And, um, you know, the community isn't, isn't, irreparably hurt by these, by this, by this trauma. So, you know, I think it's an, it's an extreme example, but I think it's a good one because, there's lots of ways that local communities can be heard. And, you know, that type of civic communication that can come from local government is useful if you've, done the job of building trust. Building trust and, and just in general I think being proactive as opposed to being reactionary, right? Right. Because that, that's the kind of the takeaway here is that I think a lot of cities will wait until something really bad happens to understand where the needs are, um, but you don't need to, you know, you can learn from, you know, these other unfortunate, uh, tragedies that have occurred and, and think like, okay, they, they took that really horrible situation, and they showed, you know, the, the strength of the work that had already been put in, um, and they really took advantage of all the resources in such a uniquely, like, coordinated way. Yeah. Um, it didn't feel chaotic, you know, more than it needed to, I guess. Yeah. Um, and so, I think it's just a, a good model for other cities that are thinking about emergency response or just in general, like, emergency preparedness. Um, to look at examples like that and think, okay, uh, do we have systems in place to reach people in all, if we lose this particular service delivery, we lose this particular communication channel. And I think, I think it's extremely interesting that if you were just depending upon wireless, if the wireless goes down and you don't have the phone, how do you reach people? Right. I mean, I mean, so like that type of thinking has to, so that's the reason why I think many, many, many places are thinking about radio particularly. Yeah. Or they're thinking about other, other ways to be able to deliver messaging, um, that aren't necessarily tied to one technolog, technological platform. So this resiliency thing, um, I think really has to be part of, part of the key message we have to have. And, and I think not taking for granted. Like the ability to tell people today, right? Like nothing needs to happen. You have all your systems in place today. Everything's running. Everything's working great. Let's go ahead and proactively. educate people. That's right. Now. I think that's exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly right. Yeah. I mean, and, and, you know. And, and build the relationships with these other, you know, do, do you have the ability to reach these other agencies that you're going to need to reach? Right. So, like, you know, what are the, what are the food shelters that provide emergency food assistance? How do you find them? Who do you talk to? Mm hmm. How do you tell their story to make sure that not everyone goes to the same one, right? You need to make sure that, that. That you have the community's ability to be able to meet that type of need if you've got that type of crisis. Same thing's true with housing. Um, so like understanding how emergency housing would work. Who you talk to. All that stuff, you can't really do in a crisis. You need to actually, probably, map things out ahead of time and have the conversations with residents ahead of time to determine what they, what information they need to know to make sure that, uh, they're taken care of in a time of crisis. So, yeah, and we're, you know, we're speaking directly to the people that have the power to get this messaging out, um, and to make the connections to people. You know, really disseminate that message even wider, make it stronger. Um, so we hope that folks listening today, uh, can either feel really good about where they're at or feel really good about, you know, what the next steps are that they could take to get some of these things in place. So, Thanks again, Mike, for joining us on the Government Video Podcast. We look forward to having you back again, I'm sure we will. Happy to be here. Thank you.