The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - How NOT to Brief the Public After a Disaster | S4Ep8

Episode Date: January 5, 2025

In this episode, How NOT to Brief the Public After a Disaster, I’ll share insight from my time on an All-Hazards Incident Management Team (AHIMT) on what not to do when briefing the public and press after a critical incident and proposed solutions to improve crisis communication in the future.Lessons learned:Not overcrowding the roomNot using basic mannersNot being honest with the publicNot letting Operations speakNot briefing leaders ahead of timeNot showing a Unified Command presenceGodspeed y'all,Kevin

Imagine you're in a crisis, maybe a fire, a flood, or a terrorist attack. You're scared, confused, desperately looking for information, but instead of clear, calm leadership, you see officials arguing, contradicting each other, or even hiding information. This episode examines the critical mistakes that can happen when emergency responders fail to communicate effectively. I'll explore how miscommunication can hinder rescue efforts, spread fear, and erode public trust. I'll also show you what good communication looks like, how clear, honest, and coordinated messaging can save lives and help communities recover from even the worst disasters. But first, please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a

minimum, and let's get started with the People Process Progress Podcast. Welcome back, everybody. On this episode, how not to brief the public after a disaster. I'll share some of my insight from my time on an all-hazardous management team that planned for and responded to events very similar to the New Orleans terrorist attack and very large political and sporting events. And so let's touch on some basics. There's a system in the United States, and you've heard me talk about it here before, and you may have heard of it, particularly if you're in public safety, called the Incident Command System. It provides a framework for who does what before, during, and after planned events or

no-notice incidents like 9-11, Hurricane Helene, or a terrorist attack like in New Orleans. And yet, despite this system, tragedies still occur because we can't stop evil everywhere, right? There are some things we can't do and we expect perfection in the world. And I'll tell you, from being on these teams and being in public safety, that's just not possible.

Lives are lost. But let's dive into some of the costly errors that can happen, particularly when communication breaks down, which, frankly, I think I and many of you saw in these press conferences, right? After the New Orleans attack, it's instead chaos, confusion, and it kills public confidence. For me, as a former public safety person, someone that used to plan for these events, someone that's a member of the public that expects more and we should all and you should expect more from your city, especially a major city, I was very disappointed and I still am. So what do we do? We share what we know. If it hits the right person out there, that's awesome.

Again, thanks for listening. Go to peopleprocessprogress.com for notes on this episode and more. But let's get into six things that I thought of that we should not do when we're briefing the public. First, don't overcrowd the room, right? Did you see how episode and more, but let's get into six things that I thought of that we should not do when we're briefing the public. First, don't overcrowd the room, right? Did you see how many people were in the briefing stage? 15, 20? I don't know, but it was too many, right? It looked like everyone wanted in and wanted to be seen and it's not effective and that's not what needed. And that's the impression I got is they're just trying to show, look, I'm here and I care. And then you heard the messaging. So what's the solution to not overcrowding?

Just designated reps, right, who will speak. They don't all need to be standing up there. They can be off to the side, still showing support, right? Tell the press and the public who's who at the beginning, which happens sometimes, which happened with them. And if you don't know an answer, hand off to somebody else that's an SME. We saw a lot of fumbling and all that kind of stuff. But don't know an answer, hand off to somebody else that's an SME. We saw a lot of fumbling and all that kind of stuff, but don't overcrowd it. It looks messy. And that's the impression I came with. So instead, designate some key people. In this case, it's the law

enforcement, right? That's primary. They could touch on briefly the treatment piece, but this is law enforcement focused. So have a local state and federal person, and then maybe someone else, and I'll get into the value of the people that are actually boots on the ground. But you don't need all those policymakers and all that kind of stuff, or they don't need to stay there and try and jockey their way into it. The second thing is basic manners, right? At some point, one person actually shoved or nudged another person out of the way to get to the microphone, right? That looks awful. And there were looks and sighs and disgust and distrust just looking at each other because everyone wanted to send a message, but they didn't want to send a message. And it was just awful. What's the solution? Pretty simple. Remember the basics from kindergarten and learn how to practice normal face.

I've practiced normal face. I heard this term coined really from Jocko Willink, a game he would play with his kids and then do. And basically you just, you keep a normal face. I heard this term coined really from Jocko Willink, a game he would play with his kids and then do. And basically, you keep a normal face as best you can during hard times or crisis. But one, just respect each other's space. Hold your comment and then ask to speak. So if it's like, okay, it's okay to be emotional. It's horrible. People got run over by a vehicle.

People get shot in schools. People die in the hurricanes. It's awful. It's okay to be emotional and sad and cry, but it's different when you're just shitty to somebody else. That's a different kind of emotion, right? And it's not good to show contempt to the people you're standing next to. I've made that mistake on calls where I let my emotions come to my face and it's not good, right? So practice the normal face where, okay, I'm listening and I'm processing, but I'm not going to show it. And if you do hear something that's not right,

say, oh, excuse me, do you mind if I speak about that? I believe we've got some different information, right? Basic adult communication skills are invaluable and the public gets it, right? It's a crisis. The third thing is, right, not being honest with the public is a thing I wouldn't do. And man, in 2025, the public has

or will very soon have access to some portion of ground truth from the disaster, probably within minutes that it happened. Now, it is important for us and the public and the press to remember that when you hear things initially, it's usually not right. And that's a very important thing to think about. First reports are often wrong. And you saw with New Orleans, you've seen with other things, the numbers change. Right. Because we're still triaging patients or treating them or they die in the hospital or something. But I'm going to quote Denzel Washington because he perfectly said it. Right. The media wants to be first, not necessarily right. So we're shooting out info. And the media is all of us, too, with my iPhone and putting it out there. And this happened and that. You look on X, you look on anything. you can, you know, fortunately I've been around this a little bit so I can tell what's nonsense, but some of the stuff looks pretty real. So you got to be really careful. So it's not to demonize the media. They have a role, they have a job. Of course it's changed over the past decade or so, but there is chaos that exists, right? And the information flow immediately after a disaster

or a critical incident like this attack. So what do we do? We, meaning the leaders that are designated or the public information officers, are the right mix of the small group that we want to talk, need to be as transparent as possible. Now, Cher, there's a thing called law enforcement sensitive, which means I'm not going to tell you because our people are working on the investigation, and if I tell you, it's going to mess it up. So some of this we saw, which we're going to shut the whole area down. There are other explosives, but I'm not going to tell you. And if I tell you, it's going to mess it up. So some of this we saw, which we're going to shut the whole area down. There are other explosives, but I'm not going to tell you. And you know why? Mostly it's because of the public. Some knucklehead is going to go to that area or try and find it. And then we're going to have to account for you, right? So some of this is for our own

protection. So give folks a break when they don't tell you everything, right? We have to, the supplement to that is admitting, here's what we know, here's what we're not going to tell you because it's part of the investigation and that's just it. And here's what we don't know and we're working on it and how we're working on it. And as soon as possible, we'll get back, right? And we'll set a schedule and I'll touch on that a little bit. But it's okay to be transparent and say what you do know, what you don't know, what we're going to tell you, what we're not going to tell you, why we're not going to tell you.

And that's hard for the public and the press to swallow some time, but that's the reality of public safety. Number four is not letting operations speak. So operations are the folks that actually say, here's what we need to do for this event. They're the experts in the field of the police, the fire, the EMS, the public health, the whoever it is that should speak to and pull together resources and gets approved for the resources for that event. So in this case, I think it was a police captain, right? It's a slippery slope though, because the leader's responsibility is to take the heat when things get bad for their people.

But where it fell flat, what I've seen and what I've seen in my career and what I saw in New Orleans are coming out of there is this white wave, right? All the officers, all the chief, all the agency administrators show up and they try and speak to a detail they don't know about. And that's a mess. This often falls flat. And I know I've seen, and gosh, from these press conferences, to me, it made the speaker look less than competent, to put it nicely. So a solution I propose is bringing the ops chief, right? That's, again, the person in charge of the actual plan who put it together. And I think this was done very briefly,

but with minimal positive impact because then the other leaders, the governor, the mayor, like everybody wanted to then get back in there. And there was some inkling of, oh, cool, they're gonna let this person that knows what they're talking about speak, and then they just trumped them. But after making the statement, here's what we could do, right?

Make a statement from whoever wants to do it, the mayor, the governor, whatever high-level person, because that makes sense, right? And then introduce this person as this is the person that put the plan together. This is the incident commander, not to throw them under the bus, but because they know about it, right? And they are in touch with it, and they can speak on high-level objectives and setups for the plan. But again, we're not giving you the details because then we're giving you the secret sauce and then bad guys can do that, right? It's a gray area.

And part of a bad guy's plan is to do something or watch something that happened and then learn from the response and then build on that and do worse next time. And that sucks for the good guys, but that's it. Right, in other words, the public and press deserve answers but not at the cost of operational security. So get those folks that know the plan with you.

They're not going to give away the secret sauce and let them talk about it because they will clearly be more competent and more familiar with what's happening than me because I have brass on my collar wanting to speak to something I don't know about like I should or I just don't. The fifth thing that I noticed was not briefing leaders before they speak. This kind of goes with the other one. And many responsible leaders that I've worked with and my mentors ask for information. That's a great example, right? What's the info from their teams before a given topic? Or they're like, hey, give me the scoop. Here's what we're going to do. They work with the planners, the operations folks, and they say, look, I'm going to queue up the conversation as the leader. I'm going to give my leadership message, and then I'm going to hand it over to you to really get into the detail to the extent that it makes sense. And to me, this wasn't apparent at all, right, when I heard the representatives from the local, state, and federal levels struggle to answer questions about the plan, what the plan was going forward, particularly in the case of what new capabilities, right, New Orleans has or does or doesn't have with vehicle barriers or street sidewalks or,

my gosh, I think I heard a high level leader, maybe the governor asked at the end of one of these, well, how do we know it's going to be safer? And he said, because I'll be there. Just because you're there, unless you're Superman, and even Superman loses people, does not mean it's going to be safer. Give them concrete answers, right? And clearly not briefed and clearly having no idea what was going on. So what's the solution, right? Take time and do an internal stand up, right? Bring your folks together.

Whoever wants to speak, great. If the chief tells me they're going to speak and I'm a captain, like they're speaking, I can't tell them not to. But during this time, listen to your subject matter experts from the department that owns the issues, right? Get some bullet points or give them to the leader who's going to take it upon themselves to speak. And this at least gives them some tangible info for them to fall back on, right?

There's also nothing wrong from speaking from notes, right? Take some notes up there. Look at them. Say, I got to check my notes. There's a lot going on. As you can imagine, emotions are high. I wrote this down. People get it, right? People are practical. You don't have to show up and give the perfect TED

talk after some people just got ran over by a truck. It doesn't make any sense. So let that go. The sixth thing for me, and I could make a super long list of this, but these were the six that really stuck out. And this one exists in almost every after action report I've read for any bad thing that's happened in the United States in the past probably 10 or 15 years. And if they would have done more after action reports that they published before then, probably even those. And there are some of those. It's not showing a unified command presence. To me, and I'm guessing many of you, the press conferences that were held by these agencies after the New Orleans attack showcased broken or non-existent

partnerships, right? They talked over each other. They stated different information. There was clear division of ownership. Well, I don't own it or they completely lacked it, right? Well, that's theirs. It was like a neon sign that was like flashing and says, we don't work together well. And for the public and for the local folks that live there, and for anyone that was visiting there, or may visit there, that just screamed, well, this is a shit show. And you guys don't work together. So it's a pretty simple solution. But the leaders have to support it, and they have to give their people time to do that. And it's trained together. Often, do exercises, meaning practice, practice sitting at a table. Practice putting your stuff out there and doing it.

But practice exercises often. Use the incident command system as it was intended, and then make it fit your needs. Just like I talk about project management, the incident command system framework is a guide. It's an excellent framework, and then you make it fit your event. But I will say, I know from real experience, and many of you out there do as well, it works. It saves time. It saves time. It saves money. And the most important thing is that it saves lives.

So I'm going to close out this kind of quick response episode and just speak to the aftermath of the New Orleans attack. Godspeed to the family of those lost, to the responders that had to see what they saw, that took the life of the bad guy. None of that was easy. None of it, like it all sucks. But we were met with a pretty chaotic display of leadership, miscommunication, infighting, lack of transparency that I think eroded the public trust, eroded mine. It hindered potential response efforts or future response efforts.

And in this episode, we examined how to improve those emergency communications, right? Explored solutions to clearly designate speakers, fostering respectful and professional interactions among leaders, prioritize honest and transparent communication with the public, right? Discuss the importance of giving a voice to those on the front lines, of ensuring leaders were well-briefed before speaking, of establishing true unified command structures where the agencies work together seamlessly because trust me, you can tell when that's not true. I hope that by exploring these strategies,

anyone that hears this, any of the agencies that learn from this horrible tragedy shed light on how to better prepare for and respond to future emergencies. Thank you all for listening to this episode to the People Process Progress podcast. You can follow me on X and Instagram at Penel KG, P-A-N-E-L-L-K-G. On YouTube at People Process Progress, got a channel there, a lot of fitness, jujitsu, cold punch stuff. And then on your favorite podcast platform, Apple, Spotify, if you can leave a review there, lot of fitness jiu-jitsu cold punch stuff and then on your favorite podcast platform apple spotify if you can leave a review there that'd be great share it with somebody that

needs to know this or feedback that you have via the people process progress.com website there's a contact me form and as we unfortunately continue to learn from tragedies from attacks from disasters let's keep letting our hope ignite us to get better, to share knowledge, to work together. The plans we'll put together together, let those guide us. And then most importantly, our actions have to transform ourselves and those around us. Godspeed, y'all.