A Case Study from the April 27, 2011 Alabama Tornado Outbreak

Lori Miller | Sales Marketing and Research | WHNT News 19

November 8, 2013

How to Set Up a Social Media Crisis Response Team

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Setting the Stage

Severe weather is what we do. It’s “normal” We have plans for it and we do well

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But there was nothing “normal” about April 27, 2011

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This is a radar composite of “rotating thunderstorm tracks” from April 27. 3 waves of tornadoes: - early morning before sunrise - midday - midafternoon until well into

the night 61 tornadoes

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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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The Outbreak April 27, 2011

The day started like many severe weather days…

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We knew it was coming. We knew it would be bad…

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But we had good plans for what we do in “normal” severe weather circumstances. For example…

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“Normal” Disaster Response Warn the Staff / Assign Roles

First – we warn the staff with a battle plan… Delegate duties and shifts and who is on call as backup Distributed to everyone, not just those named on the list Why?...

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“Normal” Disaster Response Volunteer Staffing Roles

…Because we use volunteers throughout the station to help. We have a “Severe Weather Quick Guide” to walk non-news staffers through basic functions.

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“Normal” Disaster Response Meetings throughout the day

… and we held regular meetings throughout the day

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“Normal” Disaster Response Helping from Home

… we even have contingencies for employees to help from home

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… and then we reached a tipping point

The day was progressing And then we reached a tipping point It started when we lost power…

Lost 90+ high-voltage transmission towers

It wasn’t just falling trees knocking down power lines. Tornadoes took out at least 90 transmission towers to our West (35 miles in Athens)

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Substations mangled Browns Ferry shut down

TVA’s nuclear power plant at Browns Ferry shut down abruptly because there was no electricity for cooling system.

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We were in the dark

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The generators meant our viewers didn’t know the difference – at least at first

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We continued to track tornadoes until 3:30 the next morning. In fact, at one point, we had 4 tornadoes in the DMA at the same

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But we did lose monitors in the studio at one point -- We were using the iPad on air as our only radar for a short time – this was around 5:15pm Sooo…

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INITIAL IMPACTS – EARLY PART OF THE DAY

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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We continued to work as daylight filtered through windows

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But what we becoming clear was that when those 390,000 TV homes needed us…

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WHNT Coverage area

… an estimated 322,000 consumers had no power. There were only pockets of places in Lauderdale county that had power and could receive our signal.

80+%

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Estimate of those without power

We continued to broadcast – and we’re grateful to our radio partners

We continued with wall-to-wall coverage well into the next morning

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And worked through the night as best we could

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The Next Day

IMPACTS – ON OPERATIONS

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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IMPACTS -- ON INFORMATION FLOW

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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Planning for Uncertainty

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

IMPACTS -- ON VOLUNTEERS

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The volunteers were physically separated from the News planning area

Volunteers News

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Close but, operationally, so far away…

The Changes

Moved them closer together – shared information more easily Assigned a team lead during each shift

Sit together + team lead for every shift

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Got rid of scribbled notes and consolidated info on whiteboards and clipboards

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Old school data capture

Then we reorganized the incoming information by county, and by subsections on the web and put one person in charge (no more overwrites)

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Social Media Uses

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 27 • 398 tweets • Autofed from Facebook

Twitter on April 26 • 33 tweets

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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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We split up the jobs - answer questions - post from emails - earbuds for transcription

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Divide social actions: transcription, posts, comments

The Week Continues (with a second tipping point)

Continued meeting, often outside

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People are tired and stressed – but we’re getting back into the rhythm

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And help from sister stations are making a big impact

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CONTINUING IMPACT -- ON OPERATIONS

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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SOCIAL MEDIA PROBLEMS

Planning for Uncertainty

Anger about real or perceived lack of coverage

Rumors

Fundraising sites posted to our wall – legitimate?

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What We Learned

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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WHAT WORKED

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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TIPS TO SHARE

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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TIPS TO SHARE

Planning for Uncertainty

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)

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TIPS TO SHARE

Planning for Uncertainty

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

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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

a PARTIAL UNAPPROVED

plan is STILL BETTER than

no plan at all.

Thank you

Lori Miller Sales Marketing and Research Manager| WHNT News 19

lori.miller@whnt.com @lorimillerwhnt linkedin/in/blorimiller