A case study of WHNT News 19's crisis response during the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak. Presented November 8, 2013 at #SoMeT13US in Huntsville, Alabama.

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How to Set Up a Social
Media Crisis Response
Team
---
A Case Study from the April 27, 2011 Alabama Tornado Outbreak
Lori Miller | Sales Marketing and Research | WHNT News 19
November 8, 2013

2. Setting the Stage

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http://www.norman.noaa.gov/2011/04/nssl-product-captures-april-27-tornado-outbreak-storm-rotation-tracks/

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7. The Outbreak
April 27, 2011

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2013 Photo

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11. “Normal” Disaster Response
Warn the Staff / Assign Roles
@lorimillerwhnt

12. “Normal” Disaster Response
Volunteer Staffing Roles
@lorimillerwhnt

13. “Normal” Disaster Response
Meetings throughout the day
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14. “Normal” Disaster Response
Helping from Home
2013 Photo
@lorimillerwhnt

15. … and then we reached a tipping point

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Lost 90+ high-voltage transmission towers

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Substations
mangled
Browns Ferry
shut down

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INITIAL IMPACTS – EARLY PART OF THE DAY
 Started out with a plan for a potentially violent day
 Lost power around 1:30 or 2pm – and that’s when things started to change
 Only “critical” areas were wired to the generator – no one knew which
outlets could be used and only a dozen computers worked
 Inboxes quickly began to get overloaded with information – prioritized
storm tracks
 Fatigue – and some reporters were trapped in their neighborhoods
Planning for Uncertainty

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WHNT Coverage area

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80+%
Estimate of those without power

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30. The Next Day

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IMPACTS – ON OPERATIONS
 Employees exhausted and emotionally depleted
 Couldn’t find all our employees – and some were still unable to come in
 Still on generator -- Services and systems down, limited number of
computers
 No gas, no cash
 Resource-draining coverage requirements – from Mississippi to Georgia
Planning for Uncertainty

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IMPACTS -- ON INFORMATION FLOW
 Internal misinformation (thought we needed air cards, thought all printers
were down, ‘imminent’ email server crash suspected)
 Email overload – no volunteer procedures for deleting once received
 Multiple web volunteers meant info was overwritten, not saved – in initial
hours
 Posting on Facebook like a live blog – added admins – all had different
posting strategies
Planning for Uncertainty

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IMPACTS -- ON VOLUNTEERS
 Limited knowledge of News department systems
 Overwhelmed by raw data – and no good method to share it internally
 Expended too much energy finding the same information
 Inadequate briefings at shift changes the first day
 No loop between volunteers and News teams (deployment of crews) and
engineers (status of systems) – at first
Planning for Uncertainty

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Volunteers
News
2013 photo
Close but, operationally, so far away…

40. The Changes

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Sit together + team lead for every shift

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Old school data capture

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45. Social Media Uses

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FACEBOOOK on April 26
• 32,788 Fans
• 1,107 likes and comments
• 613,032 Newsfeed
impressions
FACEBOOK on April 27
• 37,879 fans
• 6,894 likes and comments
• 3.6 Million Newsfeed
impressions

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Twitter on April 26
• 33 tweets
Twitter on April 27
• 398 tweets
• Autofed from Facebook

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On April 28,
we were at
times
averaging a
post every
3-5 minutes

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By April 29, it
sometimes
paced every
1-2 minutes

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… or faster

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Divide social actions: transcription, posts, comments

52. The Week Continues
(with a second tipping point)

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CONTINUING IMPACT -- ON OPERATIONS
 Work schedules and systems began to return to “normal” breaking news
protocols -- Non-news volunteers replaced by sister station personnel
 Communications team finally able to focus on fundraising event planning
 No commercials, no revenue – and billing was potentially problematic
 Diesel consumption at the transmitter tower
 Exhaustion – and errors
 Overloaded outlets and “coiled” extension cords
Planning for Uncertainty

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SOCIAL MEDIA PROBLEMS
 Anger about real or perceived lack of coverage
 Rumors
 Fundraising sites posted to our wall – legitimate?
Planning for Uncertainty

60. What We Learned

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WHAT DIDN’T WORK
 We mostly ignored Twitter – and that was okay with us THEN…
 We inundated Facebook with posts in 2011 for storm tracking –
new algorithms mean that wouldn’t work now
 We grabbed evaluation and benchmarking metrics as we
thought about it – which wasn’t a lot
 We didn’t update our policies fast enough
Planning for Uncertainty

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WHAT WORKED
 Using joint information centers – in the metro,
EMAs/police/mayor’s office – all reported together
 Getting help from your partners
 Embracing Facebook and getting it done
 Taking notes about what worked – while it was still fresh
 Sharing our experiences with sister stations
Planning for Uncertainty

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TIPS TO SHARE
 Specific roles – no ambiguous “helping”
 Step-by-step instructions for common tasks
 Training for working from home or offsite
 Go-kit of handy items – like extension cords and power strips
 Discussions about email limits and scheduled Facebook posts
Planning for Uncertainty

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TIPS TO SHARE
 Templates for organization – word templates for the INTERNAL
team, web templates for EXTERNAL audience
 Volunteer team leads
 Facebook – Shorter posts, subheads for easy scanning, respond
with first names, “I don’t know” is an answer
 Volunteers close together – liaise between functional groups
(Chatzy)
 Repetitive info on clipboards (no scribbled notes)
Planning for Uncertainty

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TIPS TO SHARE
 Choose important evaluation metrics now – so you don’t have
to think about it
 Use the cloud
 Plan backups for your backups – and maintenance schedules
for them
 Test and practice (technophobe employees are test beds!)
 Ask for help – know who your partners are
Planning for Uncertainty

67. NO EXCUSES
Not in my job description
No one’s asked me
No one will let me
I can’t get it approved
I don’t have time
I don’t have the experience

68. a PARTIAL UNAPPROVED
plan is STILL BETTER than
no plan at all.

69. Thank you
Lori Miller
Sales Marketing and Research Manager| WHNT News 19
lori.miller@whnt.com
@lorimillerwhnt
linkedin/in/blorimiller