Category: Weblogs

Japan’s Radiation Levels: Crisis Communications Without Context

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

 

It's hard for the average citizen not to feel concern over the news coming out of Japan about harmful radiation. After all, a reading 100,000 times higher than normal background radiation, as was recently reported, has to be of concern, right? Actually, you can't really tell from the information available in the news stories.

The problem is that radiation is a complex issue, which makes it rough on reporters. There are three areas of concern: the radiation coming from the source, the amount actually absorbed by a person, and the biological risk from exposure. These are three separate and distinct elements, each with a different unit of measurement. To make things more interesting, there are two systems of measurement in use – the conventional system used in the United States and the System Internationale derived from the metric system and used by the international community.

Not complex enough yet? There are four different types of radiation (alpha and beta particles, gamma rays, and x-rays) and each type has a number known as a Quality Factor that is used to multiply the absorbed dose to determine the biological risk. The absorbed dose is a product of the source radiation multiplied by the time of exposure.

So what's my point? The fact is that to simply state that the source radiation is at such and such a level tells us nothing about the true risk. Stating that it is 100,000 times greater than normal background radiation sounds scary but it is meaningless without any context. Is this high or really, really high? What does it mean to the average citizen? Are we all going to die? How long can someone be exposed to this level before it hurts them?

We don't really know what the long term effects will be from Japan's problems. We worry about drifting particles that have already begun to reach North America. There is concern that radioactive iodine will find its way into the food chain over time. But will the levels of radioactivity cause harm?

Without context, our citizens can't make informed decisions. We generate needless fear and encourage unnecessary precautions – sales of potassium iodide increased considerably in the United States in March. So take the time think through your crisis management message. Try to look at it through the eyes of the recipient. Ultimately, it's not enough for you to send the message; the recipient needs to receive and understand it.

Triangle of Life: Is it a reality?

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

In Bram Stoker's classic novel, Dracula, the vampire hunter Van Helsing gives specific instructions for how a vampire must be dealt with to prevent it from continually rising from the grave. I sometimes wish there was a similar ritual one could perform to remove bad information from the Internet.

Case in point is the "Triangle of Life" theory that keeps making the rounds after every major earthquake. Like most bad theories, there is just enough truth in it to make it sound plausible. The theory is based on the presence of void spaces during stuctural collapse, small spaces that form as a building collapses. According to the theory's proponent, Doug Copp, teaching people to seek out these void spaces rather than using the standard "duck, cover and hold" technique taught in the United States would save more lives.

There are several problems with this theory:

  • Void spaces do form but we don't know if they can be anticipated or if people can be taught to anticipate them during an earthquake. To my knowledge, no research has been done on this issue so there is no evidence that it works.
  • We do have research that suggests that at least half of the injuries in earthquakes are from non-structural objects, which duck, cover and hold was developed to prevent.
  • The theory is supposedly based on Copp's observations from participating in rescues at multiple disaster sites around the world. However, there is ample evidence that Copp's claims about his rescue experience are fabricated and he lacks credibility.

The two best rebuttals to this theory are a paper written by Dr. Marla Patel, an actual expert in earthquake deaths, and the American Red Cross response written by my colleague and friend, Rocky Lopes.

So please help me stake this vampire – don't pass on Copp's bad ideas and if you get a copy from a friend send them the links above. Now if I can just get rid of the "stand in the door" theory…

Japan’s Nuclear Reactors: Another Over-rated Doomsday Scenario?

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

There's an article making the rounds on the Internet purported to be from an MIT scientist that offers a very lucid explanation of the crisis at the Japanese nuclear plants and why they do not pose a major hazard similar to the meltdown at Chernobyl. While I am no expert on nuclear reactors, my colleagues who are agree that it's well worth reading and can be found here.

One of the hardest things for us as crisis managers is to ensure that accurate information gets out to the public. Subtle nuances, like the difference in types of radiation, sometime get overlooked or are not clearly understood. There is also, of course, a media bias towards the sensational but my experience with my media colleagues has been that most reporters want to get it right -that's how Pulitzers are won. So it really begins with our message and gets back to what I mentioned in my previous blog – the need to go beyond just straight facts and give simple, easily understood information.

However, this problem goes beyond just public information. Prioritizing the wrong problem in response means that resources get diverted instead of going where they are needed most. It's critical in any response to continue to assess changing needs and to focus on what is really needed rather than letting perception drive operations.

Emergency Warnings – Could They Be More Effective?

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

Had an interesting morning here in San Francisco. After staying up late following the recent earthquake in Japan, I was awoken early by a text message from a good friend in the neighborhood concerned about calls and texts she was receiving from friends about a tsunami. She lives on the top of a hill located well outside our 20 foot run up zone and I told her I'd be by for breakfast since her home was safer than mine which is only a block outside the run up zone.

A few minutes later, I received a call from another friend in Iowa advising me to start filling my bathtub and pots and pans in case we lost our water supply. After chuckling a bit, I reminded her what I did for a living.

These contacts from concerned friends reminded me once again that we really don't do a good job of public warning. Amanda Ripley points out in her excellent book, The Unthinkable, that our warnings contain fact and actions but don't always stress "why". In this case, the local authorities provided a timely warning with good information and appropriate actions. What they didn't do was couch the warning in a way that allayed concern.

Our tsunami warning include a potential for a 2-3 foot wave. The problem is the average citizen has no idea what a 2-3 foot wave would do. They tend to think in terms of a tsunami that would wash over the entire peninsula, something that is not even geologically possible given the shape of our shoreline. A wave of the size predicted would probably not even have gotten over our seawall. The EOC staff took a reasonable precaution by closing the Great Highway adjacent to the seawall and elected not to evacuate the immediate area which demonstrates they understood the risks. Unfortunately, this information wasn't really shared well with the public and the media.

This should not be taken as criticism of my local colleagues who did everything appropriately according to our accepted practices. Instead, I'm suggesting that we need to rethink the way we issue warnings and the mechanisms we use to distribute those warnings. We need to share our reasoning with the public rather than just telling them what to do. Our studies show that people don't really trust our messages and will seek verification from other sources before acting. Understanding why they should take the actions we recommend could help reduce this lag.

So the next time you need to issue a warning, give some thought to explaining what the potential threat really means. Your warnings will be a lot more effective. 

Social media and transparency in government

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

There are several criminal investigations under way in San Francisco regarding the activities of undercover narcotics officers. The officers are alleged to have conducted illegal searches of suspects' residences and falsified police reports to cover up their actions. Unfortunately, at least four incidences of alleged misconduct were caught on closed circuit surveillance cameras. The public defender presented the videos as evidence in court, where it became a public record. He then called a press conference, showed the video and then posted it to the You Tube site maintained by his office.

What makes this so interesting is not the alleged crime but rather the fact that the public defender of a major city is using You Tube for official purposes. There was a time when we would have read about an incident of this type in the papers but would always wonder if the reporter got it right. Now the evidence is readily available at the click of a button from an official source.

This is yet another example of how social media is changing how we do business in government. Transparency in government is generally considered a good thing but as social media continues to evolve, we're going to be confronted by a whole host of privacy and legal issues. But there's no putting the genie back in the bottle – social media is rapidly becoming part of the fabric of our day-to-day lives and, sooner rather than later, we will need to embrace the changes it brings. 

Disaster Preparedness Video Series

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

In 2008 I was asked by the Golden Gate Regional Center in California to serve as the adviser on a series of preparedness videos for the developmentally disabled community. It was one of the most rewarding and enjoyable projects I have had and I'm delighted to learn that this series of videos is now available on YouTube. I have posted the links on my blog site at http://freeresources.luciencanton.com/

The series consists of 8 short videos. Parts 1-5 are designed for the individual and steps you through pre-disaster mitigation and preparedness, immediate actions during the disaster and immediately following, recovery and public health emergencies. Parts 6-8 are intended to provide care givers with the tools to systematically assess their facilities and develop a plan for increasing their preparedness.

While the series was prepared specifically for the DD community, the themes are universal and the concepts can be applied to other populations. I hope you find them useful.

Does disability equal discrimination in emergency planning?

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

On February 11 a Federal judge ruled that the City of Los Angeles violated the American with Disabilities Act and various California Codes by failing to meet the needs of residents with disabilities in its emergency management program. This is the first such ruling of its kind and carries tremendous implications for emergency managers and how we plan.

The case centered on the question of equal access. Even if your policies apply to all equally and are enforced consistently, they may still place an undue burden on people with disabilities by virtue of those disabilities. In this case, the court felt that emergency plans were inadequate because they did not make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities in warning, evacuation, and sheltering.

More interesting to me as an emergency manager was that the court did not allow the city to pass the buck by claiming that other agencies and departments had responsibilities for providing reasonable accommodations. Instead, the court noted that there were no indications that those departments and agencies had any supporting plans that would have allowed them to fulfill these responsibilities.

The court also did not accept the argument that individuals have a need to prepare themselves for disaster. While agreeing with the importance of personal preparedness, the judge felt that this was irrelevant to the case as it was about equal access.

I'll be devoting this month's white paper to a more in-depth analysis of the decision.  Meanwhile, you can find the ruling at the Disability Rights Legal Center.

My thanks to my colleague and friend, Chris Godley, for bringing this to my attention!

 

Homeland Security Advisory System: Good bye and Good Riddance

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

By now I'm sure you've heard that DHS is finally dumping the color coded terror alert system that's been the butt of a lot of jokes over the years. Seems as if the DHS leadership has finally accepted what a lot of us have said from the start: it's a dumb idea.

What we really wanted in the early days after September 11th was a way to make sense of the many messages we were getting from various sources. For example, when we started getting messages about terrorists using crop dusters we wanted to know if we were facing a specific threat or if this is just something that someone at DHS thought we should think about. We wanted something simple attached to each message, along the lines of "no fooling, they're coming for you", "our experts think this is a possible threat", or "I just made this up after talking to the gang at the water cooler." Instead we got the one-size-fits all Homeland Security Advisory System.

What was immediately obvious to us in the field was that the developers of the system had no understanding of risk. The simple fact is that the risk of terrorist attack is not the same for all parts of the country. You can certainly speak of overall risk to the United States but that becomes meaningless when you get to the local level.

This also had a bearing on the actions we were expected to take inr responding to potential threats. Since the warnings we were receiving carried no specific recommendations for action, we were expected to develop generic actions for each color level. However, the first time the levels changed, we suddenly realized how much it cost to keep the entire country on a high level alert for even a few days and the system fell apart. A lot of planning time and money went into a system that did not address specific threats or local risks.

The DHS move to a more nuanced system is a step in the right direction, particularly as it promises to include specific actions to be taken based on the potential threat. Vague warnings with no recommended actions were the downfall of the original system – let's hope DHS has finally learned a basic lesson in emergency management.

Mass Animal Deaths: What we can learn about data analysis

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

You may have noticed a series of articles recently on mass animal deaths. Google has now set up a website to track these incidents. This is an interesting example of how the Internet is changing how we collect and analyze data. The normal scientific method is to develop a hypothesis, determine what data would prove or disprove the hypothesis, collect the data, and conduct an analysis of the data. Here we have the reverse – we are aggregating data and then drawing conclusions as a community from apparent linkages.

The problem is that while many people will view the aggregate data (i.e. the final map), few will dig into the background information of each occurrence to determine if there is indeed a link. Consequently, the aggregate data can be used to support a wide range of hypotheses, including conspiracy theories and alien interventions.

It's a really variation on a question that's been around for a long time: are things occurring more frequently or are we just becoming more aware of them because of improved communications? Without detailed analysis, data collection of this type may be interesting or even intriguing but ultimately is nothing more than a curiosity.

Does TSA really care what you think?

Posted on by Lucien Canton | Posted in Weblogs

One of the terms I use a lot is the psychological term "cognitive dissonance", the situation where what we say and what we do conflict. In today's San Francisco Chronicle,columnist Johnathan Gurwitz really nails the latest in terrorism theater from TSA.

As it struggles to gain support for its "see something, say something" campaign, TSA is in the process of prosecuting an airline pilot for pointing out weaknesses in security at San Francisco airport. Interestingly enough, the security flaws the pilot points out are well known and have been commented on by security experts as far back as the airline hijackings of the 1970's. TSA continues to treat ordinary passengers as potential terrorists while ignoring ground staff that have easy access to secure areas and aircraft.

A basic security principle is defense in depth. No single security measure can ensure absolute safety, so the wise security practitioner layers a number of systems in an attempt to compensate for the flaws in each through the synergy of the whole. By focusing primarily on passengers, TSA has left gaping holes in the security of our air terminals. By punishing those that dare to point out these holes, TSA suggests its not really interested in gaining the support of the public through its "see something, say something" campaign.