Note: This was adapted from a piece published in March 2014, called “Silver Linings, Federal Response to Katrina,” and is the first of four pieces we’ve put together for the 10-year anniversary of Katrina. Brandon and I reported to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Public Information Assist Team the summer of 2005. Our team was in the disaster zone from […]
Tag Archives: incident communication
It’s 4th and goal, you’ve got the ball, there’s 5 seconds left in the game and your team is down by three. The coach sends you in from the sidelines with the final play of the game, confident that it’ll be a success and lead to victory. You get to the huddle, but decide you […]
This is the third entry in a three-part series on what it’s like being deployed as a crisis incident public information officer. The first entry covered the preparatory phase of incident response operations, and the second covered what it’s like once on-scene at an incident. This entry focuses on lessons learned from the incident. What […]
This is the second entry in a three-part series on what it’s like being deployed as a crisis incident public information officer. The first entry covered the preparatory phase of incident response operations, and this one covers what it’s like once on-scene at a particular incident. Public information officer Thomas McKenzie and crew immediately reported […]
This is the first entry in a three-part series on what it’s like being deployed as a crisis incident public information officer. This entry covers the preparatory phase of incident response operations. When I met up for coffee with my friend and colleague Thomas McKenzie a few weeks ago, his black backpack had a wavy, […]
The Crisis Communicator 