When illegally dumped industrial waste caught fire at a former mushroom factory, Selby District Council’s crisis communications plans kicked into action. Communications manager, Mike James, explains how they tackled the issue and why the experiences of the past helped them manage the situation.
For a relatively small place it’s fair to say that Selby has experienced its fair share of major incidents. In 2014 the council was responsible for managing the response to a fire in Sherburn, while in 2015 the area was also affected by the significant flooding that hit the North of England and destroyed the bridge in our market town of Tadcaster. In both of these incidents we were responsible for leading the communications activity for all organisations after the incident entered its recovery phase and the emergency services had ruled out further threats to life. They were steep learning curves, but each experience helped us to strengthen our crisis communications plans. This became extremely valuable when we experienced another incident in 2016 after industrial waste caught fire at a disused industrial site in Gateforth.
The plan and execution
When we learned about the fire we immediately set up a central point of information about the incident. This was something that we learned from the Sherburn fire, where multiple agencies were involved in bringing the situation under control. Having a central repository meant that it was easier for stakeholders to get the latest updates on the fire without having to check multiple agencies’ sites and it also made it easier for the organisations actually working to tackle the incident to have one single place to direct their updates rather than repeating themselves constantly.
We also ensured that we used existing real life and online community networks to help cascade information and bring updates directly to our communities, rather than waiting for them to come to us. We had used this approach when we dealt with the flooding in 2015. During that incident we positioned staff in the community and briefed them on the latest updates so that they could directly answer questions from the public. We also made use of a number of pre-existing Facebook and community groups to post messages and encourage people to share updates within their own networks. This helped us to create a number of advocates who could reach a much wider number of people than posting through our own channels would have achieved. It also helped to capture the people who might not have ordinarily been following our updates.
We also adopted a new technology for communicating during the Gateforth fire – video. One of my colleagues had been on a video training course where she not only learned how to film good quality footage on a mobile phone, but also came away with a greater knowledge of how effective video can be for telling stories. When the fire hit we decided to head to the site to capture some footage of the response teams tackling the blaze and clearing the site so that people could see the scale of the incident and appreciate the excellent work that all our organisations were doing to resolve the incident.
The impact
The impact of communicating through video was enormous. When we issued our FAQs and key public health lines without a video on day two we had a combined Twitter and Facebook reach of just over 4,000 people. When we issued the same type of information on day three, but included a video, we had a combined social media reach of nearly 18,000 people. We also secured much higher media coverage by using the video, with the BBC and independent broadcasters using our footage in their own online content. They also linked back to our key messages which helped us communicate with even more people.
Why it worked
The approach we adopted this time around worked because we used all the elements that had been successful when we managed other major incidents. Our approach was coordinated, well organised and made effective use of all our channels. The use of video also worked really well because it tapped into the way that people are communicating now, especially across social channels. People are more inclined to share video as it tells a story in a really quick, but impactful way.
Lessons learned
You don’t need a blockbuster budget, rousing soundtrack or celebrity endorsement to make an effective video. You just need to make one and share it through platforms where people are used to watching and sharing video content. If we were to do this again I think we’d overlay the text of some of our key messages on the footage, to really emphasise what we wanted to say and we might look to include an interview with the operational leader looking after the operation.
Want to know more?
For more information please contact Mike James, communications manager, Selby District Council.