No. 04 for May 2002
So you have the beginnings of your disaster plan ready. Following your carefully crafted instructions, your staff will clearly know whom to call and how to set up coverage in the chaotic first minutes, or hours, of an emergency or disaster.
In a pinch, even the janitor could get things going by following the book.
But while reporters and photographers are heading to the scene, whom should the folks back in the office begin calling: Police? Fire? Health authorities? Federal investigators?
This is where you draw on the resources of your staff ahead of time and make sure that expertise is not hidden in a Rolodex when you need it.
First, do an inventory of likely emergencies or disasters in your area in addition to the obvious weather, fires, rail or aircraft accidents, or hazardous chemical spills.
If you are near the coast, there are sinkings, and major oil spills or other pollution can have a wide-ranging effect on waterways. There could be a disturbance at that nearby prison. Mountains or forests mean searches and wildfires.
Are there nuclear operations in your area – not just massive power plants or federal installations? Columbia, for instance, has a laundry that washes nuclear-contaminated materials, and one of the nation’s major nuclear fuel fabrication facilities is near the city.
When you assemble a disaster coverage plan is the time to find out what’s really in your backyard. You might be surprised.
Make sure you have telephone numbers and physical locations for any emergency operations centers. Many counties have a center, but some police and fire agencies also operate their own. And make sure you can reach your state’s emergency operations center.
How about all the police agencies in your area? Your university probably has its own force. Federal buildings have the protective service. There are the FBI; Secret Service; ATF state building protective services; state police, highway patrols and transport police; and state investigative agencies sometimes separate from the state police (such as SLED in South Carolina). All can have a role in an emergency or following up on one and should have a place in your book. And some, such as the Highway Patrol, often have district-level operations officers with critical information during a disaster. The key is not to leave yourself forced to rely on a hard-to-reach or possibly ill-informed public relations person.
Here are some other potential areas to consider:
Prisons: Know the Corrections Department press contact, but also its operations center, the office and control center numbers at area prisons, and numbers for wardens and assistant wardens. If your guards are unionized or otherwise organized, have contacts for those groups (for several hours during a Rhode Island disturbance, the only information we got was from union sources). Contacts for prisoner rights groups and national corrections societies can be useful. Also, outline what to do if your reporter or photographer becomes involved in hostage negotiations through a prisoner request – who has to approve that, what briefings will be given to other media, etc. A brief description of each prison – capacity, etc. – and layout, also can be very helpful.
Utilities: The maps and lists often available from your state regulatory agency or from industry trade groups in your capital might surprise you. Know all your rural electric and telephone companies and how to contact them, bypassing the jammed switchboard. Include cable TV (it’s a crisis when that TV goes off during the soaps), and consider a list of propane and heating-oil suppliers (if the roads are blocked, people with propane or oil heat can be left in the cold). The “10-10” codes for various phone companies also help because when major long-distance goes out, sometimes the dial-arounds work.
Weather: Get an unlisted number for the local weather bureau. But also have numbers for marinas (high wind can mean boats blown ashore), your state’s dam-regulatory agency (heavy rains can mean stressed dams) and, if available, your state climatologist. And don’t forget relief agencies, such as the Red Cross and Salvation Army.
Aircraft accidents: Airport PR, the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are important, but do you also have the numbers for the airport police and fire, or contacts for the airlines serving your area? What about the rental-car counters or airport hotels? How about airline baggage office numbers? (Sometimes all you want is someone – anyone – to confirm something serious is going on.) The FAA tower usually has a number you can get. And while the FAA now insists all information on private plane crashes comes through the NTSB, its flight standards district offices still are involved, and I’ve gotten many good tips there. I mentioned fixed-base operators last time. The FBOs run smaller airports and are the “gas stations” at larger ones – and they know everything. You also should see if your state airports agency has a map. Those often show runway orientations, lengths and other details, saving precious moments – and settling thorny questions. Don’t forget groups like the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and contacts for the major aircraft makers (find out what planes usually fly into your airport).
Environment: You’ll want the health and environmental agency’s contact, of course, both at the state and at the regional or local levels. (Sometimes a state has two separate agencies, one for the environment and one for health.) But don’t forget that your state’s natural resources department also might be involved. And the Coast Guard handles spills in navigable water. If you are near a major port, make sure you have the ports authority number, as well as office numbers for the major piers. Harbor pilots and tugboat dispatchers also can be valuable resources, as can marinas, and fisheries groups can assess damage to their industry. One of the best hazardous chemical databases on the Web is at http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/erd/
Industrial plants: Do you have the local manager’s number, not just the corporate PR contact? Do any of the plants have internal fire departments? How about the number to the guard shack or security office?
Earthquakes: Make sure you have a contact number for the Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., and find out what experts and seismograph centers exist at universities or state agencies.
This is not a comprehensive list. We haven’t talked about railroads or highways or numerous other areas. Yet if you take some time to think about what can go wrong (and some day likely will, on some scale), you can compile a pretty good preparedness book that not only will be a godsend at the time of emergencies, but often also becomes a widely used daily newsroom tool.
Doug Fisher teaches editing and reporting at the University of South Carolina and can be reached at dfisher@sc.edu or 803-777-3315.