Wildfires, floods, and hurricanes: Are your communications vulnerable during natural disasters?

Record flooding, wildfires, and increased frequency and severity of hurricanes are affecting Nova Scotians, governments, and businesses in an unprecedented fashion. Unfortunately, the trend isn’t forecast to change. 

The impact of these natural disasters and crises requires significant resources to be diverted from managing the day-to-day operations of government to emergency management. At the same time, municipal staff are stretched to the limit, supporting the elected officials and the public they serve. 

In the long run, there are various approaches to decreasing or alleviating risks caused by natural disasters. These approaches include developing responsible land use planning and zoning to avoid hazardous areas, constructing infrastructure to withstand storms and fires better, and increasing efforts to address the heightened vulnerabilities many residents in our communities face. However, during the actual occurrence of a disaster, communication is one of the most crucial risk mitigation strategies.

Throughout my career, I have planned and managed several incidents and crises in Alberta and Nova Scotia. I have witnessed firsthand the change in stakeholder expectations in a world where social and digital media make everyone a publisher. 

The multi-level government approach to managing natural disaster response requires a similar approach when planning your communications. Clear roles and responsibilities within your municipal communications and other levels of government and partner agencies will help quickly establish you as the first and best source of information about the issue, allowing you to maintain trust and credibility with your community while taking ownership of the narrative.

In 2023, Iris Communications supported the Municipalities of Shelburne and Barrington during and after the largest recorded wildfire in Nova Scotia’s history. Residents were evacuated from large areas of the municipalities and were on standby to evacuate other regions.

Was their home still standing? Is their business gone? Have they lost pets?

During these times of heightened emotion, residents sought prompt notification, transparency, timely and consistent communication, two-way dialogue, and someone to listen to and validate their feelings. Our team applied a trauma-informed approach to communications, prioritizing those most impacted.

We coordinated communications with municipal leadership, provincial government, first responders, and Red Cross representatives. Information gathered from several daily crisis operations meetings was used by our team across varying channels to effectively communicate with residents — email, social media, news conferences, website — and ensure they had the information needed and their questions were addressed. 

This effective communications approach led to the Municipality of Shelburne’s Emergency Management Office Facebook page growing from 200 to almost 8,000 followers.

As natural disasters and crises become more frequent and severe and impact our communities more significantly, effective communication is crucial to mitigating risks and building trust with the public. Remember, the most effective crisis management approach is effective planning, so start planning today to be ready for tomorrow's challenges. Are you prepared for a crisis?

 

Dawn Delaney is Vice President with Iris, a Nova Scotia-based strategic communications firm. She has completed training and certification through the Crisis Ready Institute and Incident Command Systems (ICS), a command-and-control structure to help manage emergency incidents and planned events. This article was originally developed in collaboration with the Association of Municipal Administrators Nova Scotia.