Crisis Communication Failure: A Case Study of Typhoon Morakot

Robert Letterman

Crisis Communication Failure: A Case Study of Typhoon Morakot

Reference

Cheng, S. S. (2013). Crisis Communication Failure: A Case Study of Typhoon Morakot. Asian Social Science, 18-32.

Theme

The Taiwanese government to Typhoon Morakot exposes three themes: 1) Ignoring warning signs, 2) Failure in Crisis Response, 3) Taking corrective actions in post-crisis stage.

Summary

·         Taiwan experiences many different types of disasters.  Including earthquakes, floods, typhoons, landslides.

·         Typhoon Morakot hit on August 8, 2009 and cost the lives of 700 people.

·         The government and President Ma received criticism for the lack of quality crisis communication before during and after the typhoon.

·         This examination of Typhoon Morakot and the failures of the Taiwanese government's communication are to serve as an example to learn how to prevent future communication break downs.

·         The Central Weather Bureau issued several warnings detailing the typhoon but severely underestimated the amount of rainfall.  Consequently the CWB was criticized for it's failure to accurately forecast the storm.

·         Southern local resident of the country were not given enough time to react and evacuate by the central government.

·         Residents blamed the central government for its inability to launch rescue and relief operations within 72 hours of the disaster.

·         The Ministry of Foreign Affairs initially refused the assistance of outside nations, a move that slowed the rescue and relief response.

·         Five lessons learned from the Typhoon Morakot: Conducting Pre-event planning, Be accessible to the public, Collaborate with credible sources, Developing culturally competent crisis response, Build a community based support system.

Application

Communication is critical to the success of any endeavor in life.  In an emergency situation everything is magnified when communication errors occur and the disaster incident that happened continues to have a ripple effect on the community.

Application to Emergency Services

The five lessons that the article addresses are extremely important to emergency services.  Having a plan in place and key personnel ready to execute the plan require a solid communications effort.  Correctly assessing the situation and verifying conditions of natural disasters needs to be repeated and we need to seek the second opinion of credible sources.

12 - Comparative Case Study Analysis - Michael Newland

Reference:

Little, M., Cooper, J., Gope, M., Hahn, K. A., Kibar, C., McCoubrie, D., . . . Leclercq, M. (2012). 'Lessons Learned'" A Comparative Case Study Analysis of an Emergency Department Response to two Burns Disasters. Emergency Medicine Australasia. Vol. 24 Issue 4., Pg. 420-429.

Theme: This is a comparason of two different case studies between two disasters that occurred. This case studies looks at the improvments made from the lessons learned from the first disaster that were applied to the second disaster.

Summary:

·         On 12, October 2002 two bombs exploded in Kuta, Bali, in two separate bars. 202 people were killed and hundreds more were injured. 28 burn victims were transferred to Royal Perth Hospital in Australia.

·         On 15, April 2009 the Ashmore Reef disaster occurred. A vessel with 49 persons on board exploded off of Australia’s coast. Five people died and 41 persons were injured. 23 burn patients were transferred to Royal Perth Hospital.

·         A number of issues identified following the Bali bombing led to the development of specific interventions and changes in approach.

·         Following the Bali bombing, the need for regular disaster training was identified. The need for provision of early on-scene interventions and burns triage was noted after Bali. The Bali bombing highlighted the need for effective communication throughout the facility. Some patients had significant delays in departing the emergency department. The experience identified the need for control of entry to the ED with large numbers of people having the potential to cause role confusion and inability to identify ED teams. It was noted there was a need for early and accurate identification of intubation requirements. The unprecedented media attention following Bali was also noted.

·         Evaluation of the issues arising from the Bali bombings in 2002 allowed Royal Perth Hospital to develop a series of specific initiatives based on this experience.

·         The implementation of these was effective in improving the hospital response to the reception and care of patients following a similar burns disaster.

Application to the Lesson Topic: This week’s lesson was Case Studies in Disaster Communication: Man-made and Natural Disasters. This particular case study was a review of two case studies on two separate burns disasters. Case studies are important because it can help others learn from past mistakes.

Application to Emergency Services: It is important for emergency responders to learn from past mistakes in order to prevent similar things from happening again. By learning from the past you can improve on patient care and emergency response.

Reading Summary 11 - Risk and Crisis Communication - Jeff Neal

Reading Summary 11:  Risk and Crisis Communication

Jeff Neal

Reference: Ferrante, Pamela; Risk & Crisis Communication, Essential Skills for today's SH&E professional; Public Safety, Print Journal Held; Jun2010, Vol. 55 Issue 6, p38-45. 8p

Theme: Risk and Crisis communication involve methods of how to communicate to the public and stakeholders information related to an emergency event.

Summary: The difference between risk and crisis communication is that risk communication occurs prior to an emergency event.  It is the ongoing process that helps to define a problem and notify stakeholder of the need for action and outline their involvement.  Crisis communication includes the messages that are delivered to stakeholders that are threated during the actual emergency.  Crisis communication purpose is to deliver the information to the public to prevent, avoid, or recover from an emergency.

When delivering the messages to the public it's important to understand how this information is processed by the public.  There are four theoretical models that outline how information is processed;

Risk perception Model: This model theorizes that public perception related to risk comes from 15 different factors.  The effect of each factor depends on the stakeholder involve, but understanding these factor help with understanding how people react to risk and crisis.  These 15 factors include: Volunteerism, controllability, familiarity, equity, benefits, understanding, certainty, dread, trust in institutions, reversibility, personal stake, and ethical / moral nature, human vs. natural origin, victim identity, and catastrophic potential.

Mental Notice Model: This model determines how the pubic process information under stress and anxiety. As the level of stress raises the individual's ability to process information decreases.  If emergency personnel are trying to deliver information during a disaster much of the message will be lost due to the public's inability to process the information.

Negative Dominance Model: During an event negative information will be received at a much high rate than positive information.  People are more concerned with what they will lose then any possible gains. 

Trust Determination Model:  The public must have trust, and trust comes first in all messages.  Without trust much of the message will be lost.  Trust in not obtained quickly, for this reason emergency personnel must establish trust prior to the event.  If the public trust the communicator the message will be heard.

Application to the lesson: Many time emergency managers spend much of their time preparing the message that will be delivered, but spend little time preparing the public to receive the message.  Hey believe because the message is so important and well prepared that everyone will listen to it when they speak, like an EF Hutton commercial.  It takes time to build the trust and evaluate the stakeholder's needs in our communities so that the message will be receive.   

Application to emergency services: part of the emergency response plan for a major disaster if communications are down in Salt Lake city is to have fire personnel report to specific stations following a disaster and then systematically drive though the area looking for emergencies.  Much of the public is not aware of this.  They believe they can still call 911 in the event of an earthquake and that help will be on its way.  This message needs to be delivered prior to an event so that the public will be prepared to wait for assistance from emergency service personnel. 

Reading Summary 11 - The crisis with no name - Sylvia Kearney

Reading Summary 11 by Sylvia Kearney November 19, 2013

Reference: Liu, B., & Pompper, D. (2012). The crisis with no name: Defining the interplay of culture, ethnicity, and race on organizational issues and media outcomes. “Journal Of Applied Communication Research,” 40(2), 127-146. doi:10.1080/00909882.2012.654499

Statement: It is important in Crisis Communication to know and understand the diversity of population groups that will be addressed. Prior to crisis and risk communication, it is vital to understand what population groups are going to be exposed to the crisis the most.

Summary: When a crisis occurs, what are the best practices used in communicating a crisis that involves issues of culture, ethnicity or race? This article states that, “ from 1980-2020 the minority portion of the US workforce is projected to double from 18% to 37%. There are 7 principles of complex systems that can affect crisis communication and management:

·      Interacting agents – are people, organizations, and/or entire industry groups that interact in open systems during the crisis communication or management process.

·      Adaptability – suggests that interactions among agents alter the complex system over time, which ultimately contributes to crisis probability.

·      Self-organization – is the process through which agents learn from their interactions.

·      Instability – indicates that complex systems are constantly evolving.

·      Influences of history – states that present behaviors are contextually situated.

·      Permeable boundaries – indicate that organizations cannot easily separate themselves from the environment in which they operate.

·      Irreducibility – suggests that complex systems are more than the sum of their parts.

Comment: I truly believe that it takes a lot of experience to become a communicator that can not only report about a crisis, but also manages the crisis at the same time, especially if it involves issues with culture, race or ethnicity. Risk Mapping, would be a crucial component to a crisis issue involving cultural, race or ethnic groups. “Multidimensional risk maps can show at a glance, what population groups are most exposed to particular hazards,” (Phillips, B. et.al. 2010)

Application: I believe that emotional intelligence is very important, especially if the audience affected by the crisis does not speak English. A crisis report that offers words that are sincere, candid, and honest can have a calming effect on the group.

Additional References: Phillips, Brenda. et al. 2010 “Social Vulnerability to Disasters” Pp. 144

LESSON 11 READING SUMMARY Risk Communication and Crisis Communication - James Delli Gatti

James Delli Gatti

The Instructional Dynamic of Risk and Crisis Communication: Distinguishing Instructional Messages from Dialogue

Reference: Sellnow, T., & Sellnow, D. (2010). The Instructional Dynamic of Risk and Crisis Communication: Distinguishing Instructional Messages from Dialogue. Review Of Communication, 10(2), 112-126. doi:10.1080/15358590903402200

Theme: Risk Communication and Crisis Communication

Summary:

·         Risk communication is an interactive process of exchange of information and opinion among individuals, groups, and institutions.

·         Risk communication's purpose is to recognize potential risks and to take steps designed to avoid crisis situations.

·         The turning point between risk and crisis occurs when three factors are present: threat, surprise, and short response time.

·         Crises occur by surprise and their threatening nature demands something be done quickly or the situation will continue to worsen.

·         Crisis communication is a rapid exchange of messages designed to gain compliance.

·         Crisis communication is using instructional information strategies that seek to tell stakeholders what to do to protect themselves from the crisis.

·         Failure in one area can foster a serious crisis in another.

·         The world is fraught with increasingly complex risks and ensuing crises.

Application to the lesson topic: In this article; The Instructional Dynamic of Risk and Crisis Communication: Distinguishing Instructional Messages from Dialogue. From the journal; Review of communication it states;

"…crisis is risk manifested. Thus, an acute crisis situation requires the rapid exchange of messages designed to gain compliance from all stakeholders in hopes of minimizing or mitigating harm."

 It is very important when communicating with the media that you are able to distinguish between dialogue and instructional messages as dialogue requires feedback and crisis communication is instructional messages that are designed to gain immediate compliance in order to expedite the mitigation of emergency situations when communicating through the media.

Application to emergency services: Risk communication is more of a dialogue that is used in order to persuade people to act in regards to risk management, while crisis communication is utilized to gain immediate compliance from people with the intent of mitigating a crisis in as expeditious a manner as possible. It is important that you recognize the difference and employ the appropriate form of communication as the environment dictates it.

Improving Effectiveness of Weather Risk Commumication on the NWS Point-and-Click Web Page - Joseph Galbraith

Joseph Galbraith

Reference:

Demuth, J. L., Morss, R. E., & Lazo, J. K. (2013). Improving Effectiveness of Weather Risk Commumication on the NWS Point-and-Click Web Page. American Meteorological Society , 711-727.

Theme: When accessing weather information online, it is important for the user to get up to date accurate and easily understandable information.  The NWS Point-and-Click system must be modified to make understanding the information apparent.

Summary:

• The National Weather Service's point-and-click (PnC) web page is the main channel through which weather risk information is broadcasted to the user.

• Users like this system because it gives them custom information for their geographic location.

• The research conducted found that several aspects of risk information are not effectively communicated through this system.

• Two aspect of the information were researched to seek ways for improvement.  They were threat existence and threat timing.

• The study used developed designs that added new textual and graphical information pieces.

• Studies showed that using boxes superimposed on the map helped users identify where the threat existed,

•The study also showed using start and stop times in the text of the hazardous warning helped users understand the timing of an event better.

Application to the lesson topic:

We must understand the tools that are available to us and how to make them better.  This website could be considered a risk communication tool and a crisis communication tool.  The NWS PnC system will help us prepare for an event and track the risk during the event as well.

Application to emergency services:

Tools like this are very valuable in emergency services.  We should know how to use them to our advantage.  We should also seek improvements of these systems.  A thorough weather brief should always be included in emergency management operations.  With today's technology we are able to predict events with more accuracy and fore warnining then ever before.

Social Networking: Crisis Communication - Ray Huntzinger ---- Reading Summary #11

Ray Huntzinger ---- Reading Summary #11



Reference: Winerman, L. (2009, January 21). Social networking: Crisis
communication. Nature. Retrieved on November 21, 2013, from
http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090121/full/457376a.html


Theme: This article describes the avenues of crisis communication
during disasters in the social networking era. Several case including
the 2007 Virginia Tech Shooting, the 2007 San Diego wildfire, and the
2008 China earthquake were compared in the context of how social media
affected crisis communication.


Summary:

· Traditional methods of crisis communication like telephones
generally have more limitations than modern social media outlets.

· It is often difficult to convince humans that they are at risk.

· Humans are more likely to be convinced they are at risk
through interaction with other humans but this has traditionally been
overly time consuming.

· Social media expands situational awareness for everyone involved.

· Social media and the internet continue to play a greater
role in crisis communication.

· Community response grids can be beneficial during
emergencies as family members, friends, and neighbors can share what
they know about the emergency to aid in emergency response and public
safety.



Application to the lesson topic:

Crisis communication is constantly changing with technology. The
article emphasized that changes in traditional crisis communication
are inevitable and should be evaluated and integrated based on lessons
learned through past incidents.



Application to emergency services:

Crisis communication is obviously an integral component of emergency
service delivery. As was discussed in the article, it can be difficult
to convince people they are at risk and simultaneously deliver this
message in a timely manner. The more the emergency management
community can learn how to most effectively communicate crisis, the
more lives will be saved. Lesson of the past and current behaviors
based on technology can be evaluated to over the most effective crisis
communication techniques and equipment.

11- EXPLORING RISK ATTENUATION AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION AFTER A PLAGUE DEATH IN GRAND CANYON - Justin Ross

Justin E. Ross

EXPLORING RISK ATTENUATION AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION AFTER A PLAGUE DEATH IN GRAND CANYON

Reference: EXPLORING RISK ATTENUATION AND CRISIS COMMUNICATION AFTER A PLAGUE DEATH IN GRAND CANYON. (2011). Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1-30.

Theme: Understanding how to explain risk effectively, and how to manage the line between crisis communications and risk communications.

Summary:

• ·         It's necessary to combine psychological and sociological approaches to help in explaining

risk perception.

• ·         Some incidents produce more visceral responses than other, depending on what the circumstances of the event are.

• ·         The message really only felt important to people in which dealt directly with the risk, and therefore the information did not gain traction to a wide audience.

• ·          While the event itself did not draw a lot of media attention, professionals in the field developed a heightened interest.  This came to fruition based on future studies and publications rather than media coverage.  

• ·         Local media coverage had some penetration that left knowledge of the event in the minds of people, but the national media hardly covered the story at all.

• ·         Media coverage was fair.  There was no embellishment of the events and the outlets stuck very close to the actual press releases. 

• ·         The crisis communications that followed the event included adding signs that there were hazards in the area associated with animals.  This increased the communities understanding of the risk.

Application to the lesson topic:

This is a great case study on how some events might seem to be very important to a sizable population but still not gain any traction with the media as a whole.  Regardless of the impact the story could have on the community.

Application to emergency services:

It is important to understand what kind of communications will be important and what ones won't.  Having this knowledge will help people in the emergency management realm understand what kind of reaction to expect from the general public or disaster professionals

Justin E. Ross
j_elliotte@yahoo.com
360 609-2839