Among the many emotions I felt during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was the fervent hope that municipal and government entities, companies and organizations had well-constructed crisis response plans. I've participated in such planning in several companies and have identified several "headscratchers" related to communications that really amazed me - things that people take for granted and can have serious consequences - such as reliance on

• Headquarters, center city or similarly identified location as the site for the crisis response center. Why assume your crisis center will have power? Even if it does, what if your crisis response team cannot get there physically? As Katrina and Rita demonstrated, city centers such as New Orleans (or Houston, for that matter) were difficult or impossible to reach, either during the hours of anticipation and the aftermath. Yet many companies and city organizations have chosen downtown offices for their crisis centers.
• Existing IT communication systems. When the IT infrastructure that supports Internet and intranet sites and other communication vehicles is located in a single geographic area - perhaps a single building - chances are these systems will be affected by the same power outages, flooding, or other natural forces.
• Availability of IT support. If your communication processes require technical support to execute - whether it's issuing a press release, posting developments on the websites, or getting notice out to employees - you've added a layer of complexity during a time when you can least afford it. And if technical support is not part of the crisis response team, then you're practically guaranteeing that you'll have problems.
• Email to reach employees. Thinking you can catch employees by email in the days before, during and after an event is wishful thinking. As example, consider the stinging criticism that FEMA is receiving for publishing contact information on websites and TV where the affected can't see it.
• Key individuals. Why do we think the event will be over just about the time that the initial response team is getting tired? Not only that, how do we reach key people? Do they have laptops at all times so they can access email, intranets and crisis plans?
• Crisis plans posted only on the web, or in print. Crisis plans updated infrequently and distributed in weighty binders; information tucked away in special sections on intranets difficult to locate in an emergency - do you recognize some of this in your current strategy?
• Partly developed crisis response plans. I've seen plans that have holes in them that would make a hurricane proud - plans that consist of a call tree listed by seniority (is the employee really supposed to call the CEO directly?), and plans that don't define what constitutes a crisis and when to escalate to the next level. Plans that don't account for events precipitated by external forces, and plans that don't describe responsibilities at global, national, state and local levels, both within and outside of the organization.
• Quantity, over quality. Post Katrina/Rita, I am hearing accounts of well-intentioned communicators issuing too frequent updates that repeat the same information, for example, that employees are receiving from external or other internal sources - or is simply not critical to the task at hand.

The major communication challenges in crisis response relate to marshalling internal resources and communication with key constituencies, so I'll focus on these areas in the following suggestions:

• Locate crisis centers in various geographic areas. Better yet, create a virtual team that operates from wherever they are by Internet, satellite or VoIP phones.
• Equip crisis response centers properly. Chances are the catering company won't be available to stock the kitchen, so have supplies on hand. Make sure you appoint a detail-oriented person who is obsessive about batteries and other equipment being in good running condition. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and staffers holed up in the Hyatt found to their dismay that the satellite phones they had stashed for an emergency were all dead. This rendered them incommunicado, according to their IT officer, until he remembered he had signed up for VoIP service. They were able to obtain VoIP phones from a local Office Depot and got eight lines running from the mayor's emergency headquarters.
• Diversify communications media. Work with your IT group to identify external vendors to host alternate or "dark" websites that don't rely on the same servers as your primary sites. There are even tools that you can use to generate employee email and can update weekly (or as often as you choose). Build contact information systems that key off your HR information and update daily. Populate call trees with contact information that includes employee and spouse cell phone numbers, alternate email addresses and family contact information. Make sure management AND staff have copies. Set up a 1-800 (or local) number where employees can call in for updates from anywhere, and voicemail broadcast capabilities to reach all employee mailboxes.
• Ensure your communicators can use the communications vehicles themselves. Communicators should be able to email all employees or some subset of same within minutes, post material themselves on the Internet and intranet sites within minutes, issue a broadcast voicemail, call an employee's home or spouse, set up a Webex or other Web-enabled conference within minutes.
• Train multiple crisis response teams. Events and consequences evolve over days, weeks and months and your initial response team will be unable to sustain the effort over time, so make sure you have equally trained backup teams.
• Give key people the equipment and information they need and require that they have it with them at all times. Provide them a second laptop, rather than have them carry their primary laptop from the office each day. Buy VoIP phones. Hold unplanned drills. Go beyond tabletop exercises.
• Review your plan with an external expert. He or she may be able to spot those hurricane holes.
• Be judicious in what you communicate. Especially while employees are dealing with the event, for example, don't inundate them with updates of what the company is doing to address the crisis. Rather, reserve communications for employee-related and business-critical actions and post the good stories where they can find them.
• Above all, think the unthinkable. What is likely to occur is not what you're planning. For every process, person and place, define at least one alternate; preferably more.
• Take time now to invest in solutions when you're not in the midst of dealing with a catastrophe. Determine what vital information and processes need to be implemented before the next event.

What is your point of view? Please post your thoughts on the discussion board.

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