Communicating during a crisis: TSB

response to Lac-Mégantic

Jacqueline RoyDirector, Communications6 February 2014

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• About the TSB• Communicating a transportation accident• Lac-Mégantic accident: background• Communications strategy• Evaluation• Best practices• Lessons learned• Take aways

Outline

About the TSB

Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) mandate: To advance transportation safety in the air, marine, rail, and pipeline modes of transportation that are under federal jurisdiction by:

• conducting independent investigations• identifying safety deficiencies• identifying causes and contributing factors• making recommendations• publishing reports

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About the TSB

• 5 Board Members, including the Chair

• 230 employees, 10 offices, across Canada

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• Vancouver• Edmonton • Calgary• Winnipeg • Toronto

• Ottawa• Gatineau (HQ)• Montréal• Quebec• Halifax

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About the TSB

Three phases of an investigation:• Field phase• Examination and analysis phase• Report phase• Lac-Mégantic investigation is moving to

report writing phase

• If we identify safety deficiencies during an investigation, we don’t wait for the final report to communicate that information to the industry, regulator and public

Communicating a transportation accident

• Transportation accidents ARE News• They attract a lot of attention from traditional

and non-traditional media outlets• 24/7 news cycle• Constant pressure to update stories for

websites, blogs and news for morning, noon, evening drive and night air times

• TSB has many ways to publish information• Newswire, website, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube,

blog• TSB must be accessible and transparent

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• July 6, 2013 – runaway train descends into Lac-Mégantic, Québec, derails and a fire causes mass destruction

• Majority of downtown Lac-Mégantic is destroyed

• Several businesses were lost

• Environmental damage was widespread

• 47 people were fatally injured

Lac-Mégantic accident: background

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• The human/economic/environmental loss was extensive

Lac-Mégantic accident: background

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• How do you really prepare for ….

Lac-Mégantic accident: background

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• Launched standard operating procedures• Enacted crisis communications plan

• Used regular communications (traditional and social media) – but upped the frequency of communications and details released

• Adjusted to being involved in the top media story nationally (as well as in the top 3 internationally)

Communications strategy

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• Assess• Received various reports and (mis)information

about the accident• Engage senior management• Mobilize and act

• Determined first steps• Decided who deployed and when • Released key information as soon as possible

• Liaise/reach out• Made contact with key communications partners

(TC, SQ, EC, etc)

Communications strategy - First hours

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• 3 TSB communications advisors on site • 15-20 TSB employees on scene in Lac-Mégantic• 3 NTSB employees launched to Lac-Mégantic

• Daily tactic meetings• Internal communications

• Media relations• Non-stop media requests• Surge capacity of communications team

Communications strategy - First days

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• Media events• Scrum on July 6 (with partners) – deployed

investigator• Stand up on July 7 (with partners) – lead

investigators• News conference on July 9 – lead investigators• News conference on July 12 – Chair/COO• News conference on July 19 – lead investigators

• Website – active investigation page• Social media

• Twitter/Flickr

Communications strategy - First days (cont’d)

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• Rotated deployed staff in Lac-Mégantic• Media relations

• Regular media requests• Media events

• News conference on August 1• News conference on September 11• News conference on January 23

• Simultaneous communications with NTSB

• Website • Social media

• Twitter/Flickr

Communications strategy - Following weeks

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• Regular media requests• Updates/news conferences as required• Briefing/liaising with stakeholders• Preparation for eventual investigation report

release• Communications products• Visual aids (videos/animation)• Location/logistics• Briefings (next of kin, town of Lac-Mégantic, other

stakeholders)

Communications strategy - Ongoing

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• For most, first time public had heard of the TSBMedia relations• Prepare regular news and social media analyses

• Rail safety remains top of mind for Canadians

• To date, received ~500 media requests• We have responded to all

Website• More than 100,000 page views of the

communications products on TSB website in over 6 months• Majority in first week, then @ each media

announcement• Twitter drives a lot of traffic to our website

Evaluation

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Social Media• From July 6 to 17

• Twitter - added 1103 followers• ~600 retweets of information/photos

• Flickr - 204,000 views of all photos• Top photo (27,103 views)

• YouTube – TSB videos viewed 8,445 times (most viewed – 2 rail videos)

• Blog - viewed 320 times (unrelated to the accident)

• Ongoing – social media activity is very well received by media and public

Evaluation (cont’d)

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Feedback

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External Communications• Strategic media briefings • Social media

• Reached new audiences• Helped manage the message - tweeted key messages

throughout announcements• Controlled photos

• Identification of primary spokespeople (reserved for key media) and overflow support from across Rail branch

• Maintenance of evergreen media lines for spokespeople • Updated website

Best practices

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Internal Communications• Senior management engagement and support• Updates to employees• Checking on the team’s well-being regularly

• Health officials in Lac-Mégantic and in-office follow-up

• Rotated on-the-ground communications support• Mobile office / command post

Best practices (cont’d)

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• Underestimating the event in the very beginning• First scrum wasn’t effective• First news conference didn’t go as smoothly as

hoped• Identifying potential shortfalls

• Seeking MOUs with other government departments for future surge capacity

• Worst-case scenario: outside example

Lessons learned

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• Validate information quickly

• Obtain senior management engagement and support

• Identify and prepare spokespeople

• Maintain dialogue with key stakeholders

• Communicate, communicate, communicate• Use many different media – not everyone receives

information the same

Take aways

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QUESTIONS?

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