PIO Training Pays Off Again

Nothing like a solid emergency exercise to refresh the skills and remind the brain. Thursday I had the chance to volunteer with our county department of emergency management, and it brought back some of the lessons learned from public information officer schools both at the state and national level. Many of you following remember last year’s CoSIDA presentation on the importance of being familiar with the incident command system.

Once the functional exercise was underway and the radio calls went out over the air, I knew it was a matter of time before the media arrived at the front door. At the time, I was working in what’s called a COML role (communications leader, as in radio operations, not public relations), but flagged that possibility for the lead persons. Like clockwork, one of the local TV crews rolls up and it was time to hand off to my other COML and jump into PIO.

They heard the traffic, understood that it was a drill but were having to make sure it was. It proved a fantastic opportunity to fulfill two of the core tenants drilled in at PIO courses: Don’t wait until the emergency to start swapping business cards and educate the media about what your agency does.

The crew was very cooperative, and even took a moment to play along in the scenario. It forced some of the participants to realize they needed their own PIO folks along when they had to step out and take questions for a mock press conference.

Once that was done, I escorted the crew to get B-roll of the event, access they would never have in a real emergency but a perfect opportunity for one of the three stations in our area to understand what the process was in the background.

Later in the day, I overheard a stray comment about “you’d never let the media roam around your facility.”

That concerned me. As public agencies, there is a level of right to know. Certainly you would not allow that in a real event, but what better time to explain what happens, show the mechanism tax payers are providing and most of all – gain buy-in for the process in the event of the real emergency.

The media is a vital public safety partner. If the scenario of this drill were real, there would have been a huge message component – telling the public how to stay safe, what to do if they were impacted and the keep general order. By showing the local media how the system works during a drill, it will pay future dividends when they have to trust the local agencies, and be a partner with those agencies to get the information out.

I’m going to call that a double win yesterday.

For my college colleagues, a reminder that you can pick up a lot of the information that will enable you to be a contributing participant if you should have a major incident on your campus through the Department of Homeland Security’s FEMA on-line courses. You can volunteer with your local agencies for the chance to give yourself that “swap business cards” time with your own public safety groups. And, be sure to ask if you are the SID to participate if your school sends a contingent for training with NCS4 – the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security. Thanks to outreach from CoSIDA to NCS4, the SIDs are now a part of the leadership group.