12- Ashley Burningham- Disaster Case Study

Reference:

Xuehui Huyebing Yangli Liuxufeng Liuyang, T. (2010). Early psychological intervention following a natural disaster: A case study with a victim buried under rubble for 124 hours. Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal, 38(1), 71-74.

Theme:

Early psychological intervention is vital for survivors of disasters. 

Summary:

- Wenchua, China: epicenter of earthquake on May 12, 2008. 

- Significant damage, many people buried

- Victim rescued after 124 hours and was given immediate psychological and physical treatment. 

- Victim: 21 year old man of Qiang ethnicity

- Taken to Xijing Hospital

- Victim could hold himself up; severely dehydrated

- Body temp: 36.7 degrees Celsius

- Pulse: 147 beats per minute

- Respiration: 29 breaths per minute

- Blood pressure: 156/95

- Crash injuries, skin necrosis, and electrolyte imbalance

- Mental exam: victim mildly aware of surroundings, orientation fair, abnormal space orientation, limited awareness, impaired concentration, tears and restlessness, passive speech behavior, weak voice (consistent with Acute Stress Disorder)

- Memory intact

Crisis intervention:

1. Obtain patient's trust

2. Define support structure

3. Broaden support and reconstruct self coping skills

Physical Treatment:

-5/19: skin grafts

- 5/21: clear consciousness, good eye contact, overall normal cognitive function, relevant coherent answers, stable emotional state, seemed tense at times

-6/20: recovered and discharged

Application to lesson:

This weeks lesson touched on case studies of disasters. Case studies are important ways that we examine what went well and what can be improved in an incident. This article studies the case of a man who was trapped and how they handled the situation during and after the event. By studying this case, we can see that early intervention can mitigate the impact of a disaster.

Application to career:

In law enforcement, it is important to study past experiences to help determine how we should respond to incidents. It is important to try to implement mitigation strategies to reduce the impact of a disaster. 

11 - Crisis Communication Jeffrey Marin

Reference:  Veil, S. R., Buehner, T., & Palenchar, M. J. (2011). A Work-In-Process Literature Review: Incorporating Social Media in Risk and Crisis Communication. Journal Of Contingencies & Crisis Management, 19(2), 110-122. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5973.2011.00639.x Retrieved from: Academic Search Premier

Theme:  The article discusses ways to incorporate social media in crisis communication.

Summary:  Technological advances are changing the way in which emergency managers are communicating with the public.  Social media sites are either low cost, or free altogether; with the latter being the most common.  Social media allows information to be shared, and re-shared without relying on journalists.  Social media allows you to directly connect with your population to disseminate information.

·         Social media is, at its core, human communication. 

·         New media technology allows private individuals to be sources of information.

·         During a crisis, the public has the right to know about the risks they face.

·         It is important to listen to the concerns of the public, and react to those concerns.

·         It is important to be open and honest with the public, or they will turn to other sources for information.

·         It is important to have relationships with credible sources before a crisis.

·         Do not wait for all of the information before communicating with the public; doing so will result in greater loss, injuries, or death.

Application to Lesson:  This article provides great tips and pointers to follow when using social media as a crisis communication medium.  

Application to Job:  Emergency managers must become familiar with the popular forms of social media.  People will be eager to know what is going on, what will happen, and what they can do about it.  Communicate with them as early as possible. 

10- Press Conference Jeffrey Martin

Reference:  Press Conference on Olympic Games and Urban Medical Assurances. (2009). Chinese Law & Government, 42(4), 9-21. doi:10.2753/CLG0009-4609420401 Retrieved from: Academic Search Premier

Theme:  This press conference covered public health concerns with the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. 

Summary: The International Olympics Committee was concerned with visiting parties being at risk from diseases in China.  The PIO for the press conference was assuring them that the risks were mitigated.  The Chinese government began supervision programs to stop the spread of disease.  Air quality surveys were being conducted daily.  There was a big concern about spreading AIDS.

·         Widespread food safety programs were implemented.

·         Disease monitoring was established for all Olympic venues and official Olympic hotels.

·         400,000 condoms were distributed to the rooms of all the large hotels in the area.

·         250,000 copies of “Manual of Preventing Aids” were distributed.

·         Beijing set up two methadone clinics to help with opioid addiction.

·         7,397 people connected to the competitions were treated for various problems.

Application to Lesson:  This was an interesting article to read, simply because it was an official press conference from representatives of the Chinese government.  Their government is very tight lipped about what happens.  There was a big concern about only showing the best side of the country, and if bad news was leaked they became very embarrassed and angry. 

Application:  It is important for emergency managers to share all available information, not just the good news.  I am certain that there were statistics about disease which were not positive, and which were not reported by the Chinese government.  Don’t be like that; tell all or tell nothing. 

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