Every PIO must learn from Uvalde's public information mistakes

We are still a long way from knowing everything we need to know about the Uvalde massacre, but we know enough that every communications professional can learn and prepare better for future mass casualty events or other major emergencies.

While I recognize that it’s easy to criticize from over 1,000 miles away, my experience with emergency communications tells me that there is a lot we must learn just from what is already clear. Every emergency response organization must be ready for whatever happens on their watch. Public information is part of any major incident response. It’s not optional, nor can it be improvised or ad-libbed.

The communication errors in Uvalde were many. Multiple agencies and various levels of government provided information, and they clearly had not coordinated effectively. The initial result was confusion and fear, followed by more pain and anger when people learned that officials had given out false information.

Uncertainty about a chaotic incident may be expected, but misleading, false or mistaken information is inexcusable. The families of the victims, the survivors, and the people of Uvalde all deserved better.

Many organizations have already reviewed their emergency plans and started revising them, including the communications elements, since May 24. Every city or town hall and every emergency response organization should do at least these five things:

1. Clarify who communicates to the public when a major incident response is underway. If public information responsibility shifts under certain circumstances, establish ways for that handoff to be coordinated so that messages are consistent.
2. Create a checklist of basic information that must be provided to the public promptly. Some of the facts that generally should be provided routinely include: What time did the response begin? Who arrived first? What did they find? What did they do? Who was in charge? Who else was involved? What time did the incident end? How did the incident end? Practice writing statements with this information.
3. Work with mutual aid, government agencies and any other organization that potentially would be involved in a major emergency response to establish communications protocols. Even if 50 agencies are part of the response, the public should get one clear, consistent, accurate message.
4. Practice with authentic pressure. Even the best plan will fail if the people who must follow it are unfamiliar with the details or unprepared for the responsibilities. Put your PIOs, chiefs or other leaders in front of cameras as if they were doing a real briefing in a real emergency. Consider inviting actual members of the local news media to participate in the training so that they know what to expect should a big emergency occur.
5. After every major incident, evaluate the communications along with everything else. There are always ways to improve and serve the public better.

The apparent lack of comprehensive emergency communications planning and practice resulted in messages like this one issued by the Uvalde school district while the shooting was underway:

?“Please know at this time all campuses are under a Lockdown Status due to gun shots in the area. The students and staff are safe in the buildings….”

There was no way for anyone to know that students and staff were safe when this message went out. Nobody should ever say that people are safe until that is absolutely certain, the incident has ended, and every person is accounted for. Imagine being one of the parents who got this message, only to learn later that their child was among the 19 dead students.

Human instinct is to reassure frantic family members who are demanding information, but you inflict greater harm by providing anything that is uncertain, unconfirmed or unlikely to remain true. It is far better to say something like, "We don't have that right now but that's something our investigators will be working to determine" than to say anything that turns out to be wrong. Even, "I don't have that answer yet" is better than speculating. This is why police frequently avoid giving specific numbers of casualties in their first briefings after an incident. Usually, there is no benefit to giving information that is unlikely to be accurate, and in many instances, giving inaccurate information does far more harm than good.

This post from the Uvalde Police Department was closer to the right idea than the message from the school district:

“Large police presence at Robb Elementary 715 Old Carrizo St. We ask the public to avoid the area.”

But even this fell short of what should have been instinctive. If the purpose of this message was to tell people to stay away from the area, write the message from the audience's perspective. Think about who is receiving the message so that you are sure to convey the right information. If you need people to do something specific, put that first. Here's another way the police message could have been phrased:

“Stay away from the area of Robb Elementary 715 Old Carrizo St. because of police activity. Do not go to the campus. More information will be provided as soon as possible.”?

Keep in mind, too, that people are more likely to follow instructions if they are told what they can or should do instead of what not to do. (Remember why men used to be told to "boil water" during childbirth.) If you want people to stay where they are, say that: "Shelter-in-place" and indicate how or when updates will be provided.

Another example was two days later, when a Texas Department of Public Safety commander briefed reporters without having the facts straight. How do we know this? He gave two different versions of how the shooting ended and how the gunman died. It was simply not possible for both to have been correct. Especially in complex emergencies, write out a statement and get someone else to fact-check it before going in front of the cameras. Chiefs, commanders, PIOs or anyone else briefing the media and the public must have the facts and stick to them.

Disseminating accurate, timely information is not optional. It’s essential to keep people away from danger and to reassure them when a situation ends. When mass casualty incidents occur, the information must strike a careful balance between hope and reality and should also include guidance on what people should do at that moment.

Police communicators who have been through these horrible incidents also have established a long list of best practices based on their experience, including ways the police can help families and other victims directly as the media swarms.

As a communications professional who has worked with law enforcement and other emergency response organizations for many years, I want to make sure that every other law enforcement agency knows how to do better should a horrible event like what happened in Uvalde happen on their watch.

Want to dig deeper? Here are some additional resources. Please suggest others in the comments.

• Early Communications Lessons from Uvalde by Judy Pal addresses some of the ways that major incident communications differ from the everyday and why every department needs a communications professional as part of their strategic response.
• The Tragedy in Uvalde, Texas - Forgetting the Importance of Effective Communication (mdbruceandassociates.com)
• Much more on this is in my book, The Communications Golden Hour: The Essential Guide to Public Information When Every Minute Counts. Lessons from Uvalde, the pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd are among the new elements in the expanded second edition, coming this fall.