Ed Cafasso wrote a great article that appears in the current issue of PR Tactics, published by the Public Relations Society of America. "Hurricane Katrina illustrates the importance of aligning action and communications," does a good job of examining the response to the hurricane and shining the light on lessons that can be applied by communicators at all organizations.
The story included a few quotes from DPK Public Relations'' president Dan Keeney, APR:
Dan Keeney, APR, says the escalation of the tragedy in New Orleans illustrates how important it is for action and communications to be aligned.
“When action and communications are inconsistent, credibility goes out the door and the public’s trust disintegrates. What is being communicated must be consistent with what’s being done. You can’t say that everything that can be done is being done while failing to deliver basic necessities to crowds of people,” says Keeney, who runs DPK Public Relations in Houston and Dallas.Keeney says businesses may now want to consider maintaining a dark crisis facility far from their corporate headquarters, noting that a dirty bomb or biological attack in a metropolitan area could render the infrastructure just as useless as the physical devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
“I hope the Katrina tragedy will inspire businesses to make their crisis plans living documents rather than window dressing,” Keeney adds.
Additional thoughts about the lessons America''s businesses can learn from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are available here.