How can poor crisis communications cause harm?
Poor crisis communications can cause harm. For example, if you use codes in your emergency plans, you may cause a teacher to evacuate children into a toxic cloud of chemicals because they misunderstand that critical communication. If you try to communicate and you don’t, for example, have public address externally, you implement a lockdown because in the one case in North Carolina, a bear came onto campus with small children, so they implemented what is known as a reverse emergency evacuation procedure. If you didn’t have external public address or some other means to notify staff and students outside that there’s a danger, your notification may not protect the very people it’s designed to. So, crisis communication is one of the most important aspects of getting the job done when we’re in the response phase, and again, it’s people and their communications ability under stress, the techniques that we use to clearly communicate, plain language, making sure people understand what directiv
