Documenting Disaster: The Power of Preparation

Can strategic planning and empathy transform chaos into order?

In this episode, Tim Conrad introduces Michele Toma, an information officer with expertise in research, analytics, and crisis communication strategies.

They recount their experiences during the devastating 2023 British Columbia wildfire season, highlighting the importance of humanity, empathy, and meticulous documentation in managing crises.

Michele shares her insights on strategic planning, stakeholder relations, and the critical role of business continuity plans.

Their discussion underscores how turning negative feedback into opportunities for improvement can significantly enhance crisis response and communication efforts.

Listen For:
06:47 - Documentation and Accountability
15:04 - Empathy in Crisis Management
20:08 - Business Continuity Planning Essentials
27:54 - Turning Negatives into Opportunities

See the graphics and documents discussed in this episode
Documents and images

Guest: Michele Toma
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Transcript

Tim Conrad (00:06):

Welcome to the Wildfires, floods and Chaos Communications podcast. I'm Tim Conrad, president of Butterfly Effect Communications. Our team of information officers will take you through our experiences navigating the ugly 2023 British Columbia wildfire season, along with some past emergencies. I'm happy to introduce you to Michelle Toma in this episode. Michelle was an information officer in the Columbia Shuswap Regional District Emergency Operation Center. Let's learn a little bit more about Michelle.

Kendra Stoner (00:33):

Michelle Toma knows the most successful strategies are informed by knowledge gained from in-depth research and analytics. She excels at developing and executing research strategies that enable clients to better understand internal and external audiences. This then leads to the design testing and implementation of communication strategies that support achievement of organizational objectives. Whether the goal is to identify improvement opportunities in key performance areas, or strengthen business critical relationships through stakeholder relations, there's always a need to communicate. Michelle's experience and insight will help ensure you get effective, measurable plans to identify potential issues, manage risks, and be ready to navigate crises through annual planning exercises and training. Her key skills are in in-depth research and analytics, strategic planning, stakeholder relations, outreach and engagement and issue and risk mitigation.

Tim Conrad (01:28):

Hello, Michelle.

Michelle Toma (01:29):

Hello, Tim.

Tim Conrad (01:31):

So you arrived in the first day that residents who had lost structures were getting their first view of the devastation, and you joined the team out in the field. I think I dropped you off out in the middle of one of the roads with Mike, and it was a pretty difficult time though. Those couple days were especially challenging. So I'm curious to see what your first impressions were as you arrived.

Michelle Toma (01:57):

So it was a rather humbling experience for sure, because the humanity that you immediately saw, as soon as you dropped me off by an outhouse by the way. But as soon as you drop me off, I could see how people were rallying. And when I got to finally engage with the team that you built, I mean, it was extraordinary. People were embracing, there wasn't wonderful to see Michelle. It was just, like I said, an experience that was just so full of humanity and warmth and caring. So I immediately felt welcomed and that also ignited my own wanting to be part of this team and do everything I could be to give us the best possible outcomes.

Tim Conrad (02:55):

Yeah, first off, sorry for you off by an out host, but it's good to know there was one there.

Michelle Toma (03:04):

I used it, I think.

Tim Conrad (03:07):

Yeah. And yeah, those days were tough. Each incident I've been through, they never get easier. That's one thing I've definitely noticed. And our team was absolutely spread out everywhere in that fire zone to support people where needed. And yeah, it was a tremendous effort by both our team and then all of the others that were involved with CSRD. And we had mental health professionals and First Nations were there and so on. So it was fairly a full team effort. So yeah, so last summer a big focus of your time was on documentation. So capturing what had happened and creating systems and processes for common activities so we could do them faster the next time you love research and planning. That was quite clear. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about how we need to build from research in an emergency to help us out.

Michelle Toma (04:16):

So that's a great question and thank you for asking that. I mean, I think sometimes what happens is we put plans into place and whether it's triggered by some sort of a crisis, we don't always go back to those plans. We don't always measure them in terms of are they still effective? Are they working, are they inclusive? And for me, that has always been founded by testing that through research, looking at best practices often, which also involves project management because the different sort of theories, the assets that project management involves sort of helps you set you up for further success. But again, I always want to know that I'm staying on top of how I utilize these resources in terms of crisis planning, project management, documentation, which means if we're not really thorough and rudimentary in how we do that, we can't actually measure properly the success of the tools that we're currently employing. And research just plays a fundamental role in all of those elements and having successful outcomes, which means hopefully helping people during times of trauma and crisis.

Tim Conrad (05:41):

Yeah, absolutely. And it's doing that in an emergency is very difficult. You have to have a certain amount of resources in order to be able to do research and then take that right through to evaluation and was happy this time that was able to do that in the midst of the emergency so that we could adjust our strategy as we went. And it was actually extremely helpful after those, I would say after the first week we were on the ground to be able to do that. So

Michelle Toma (06:14):

No, I also wanted to add though too, all of those assets, systems, processes, they're fundamental in being able to make sure that you're auditable. So if you have an accountable or a governing body, it's a must to be able to set up those systems where you actually can go back and say, these are all the deliverables that we undertook. And being able to report back for ensuring that there were those successes and how to measure them.

Tim Conrad (06:47):

Yeah, absolutely. And even in that as we go back to looking at documenting what had happened, I find a lot of times in emergencies if that system's not set up from day one, it doesn't happen. So you did a lot of work backwards along with Mike to capture what had happened and all of the activities that we did in the information role enroll, but it's a challenge to do that. And so any thoughts around documentation and things that people can do to help themselves out as they go through that stuff, because as you point out, there is a regulatory component to that, and it does happen. Governments come back and there could be courts, a court case that's related to it that they're looking for that documentation to understand what happened and when. And information often is one of the big leaders in that as well as planning. They keep track of everything that they're doing as well. So give me a little bit more on the documentation side of things.

Michelle Toma (07:54):

So from a reporting or auditing or accountability perspective, you always want to be able to track the different communications forms that are employed during a crisis for anything for that matter, and make sure that there is an understanding or visibility into the frequency of those communications, and again, what platforms you're using to communicate them. There's nothing wrong with, I mean, I learned this frankly through the, Tim was, you know what? And you were the one who sort of ignited the idea, but it was like, okay, well how do we make sure that there is an audible process? And in fact, so we built something, we built a template. So from a documentation perspective, I actually did quite a bit of research, which I'm sure surprises you, Tim. I thought there's got to be a template out there for something like this and there. And so then you had to use a bit of ingenuity and think, okay, well, I'm going to build something. And then I tested it past Mike and Bri, our other two colleagues on the team, and once I felt like there was a level of confidence, then we started using it. And in fact, it turned out to be a very instrumental tool, all because as you recall, Tim, the board of directors called upon the operating folks in the CSRD to actually demonstrate that yes, there had been tracking in place and how we were going to report back to the board,

Kendra Stoner (09:35):

Here are some quick stats, butterfly effect communications activities during 2023 season of emergency preparedness and response, 10,000 kilometers traveled the equivalent of 24 weeks, worked in emergency operation centers, 12,000 residents evacuated 49 public engagement events where we had over a thousand conversations with residents, 9,000 knn, 95 masks given to residents, nearly a mask for every person in that region, 2,600 videos and photos, 1,300 spokesperson mentions in one month reverse media coverage from significantly negative to positive in just two weeks, over 1 million words written or reviewed, zero lives lost. Now, back to the podcast,

Michelle Toma (10:39):

You've had a long and varied career because if memory serves, you started in public relations, then you moved into marketing, then you went to firefighting, and now you're in crisis communications and emergency response. And I see how they're all interconnected, but what was your passion that led you away from firefighting into what you're doing now?

Tim Conrad (11:06):

Yeah, interesting. So yeah, when I took, it kind of goes back. I started with firefighting when I was in my teens. I was part of a junior program in the volunteer department in my hometown, which I ended up back in a moment here in that department. And so I was in two different departments and eventually in the county of Grand Prairie as well out in Alberta. But when I was in public relations and taking my training, I went to NSCC first class and way back in 1998. And my instructor, Trudy Richards, she was very experienced and particularly she loved crisis. And that kind of rubbed off on me through the time with her. And I'd also had an interest from the Westray explosion, which was a mine explosion that happened in Nova Scotia. 26 miners, if I remember correctly, were killed. And it was a fascinating thing to watch as it unfolded.

(12:07):

It happened on Mother's Day, and I remember that very vividly. And Jim Nunn, if anybody remembers him, he used to be on the Fifth Estate, so I believe it was a CBC, and he was the anchor in the CBC broadcast in Nova Scotia. And he gave a clinical approach to how to question somebody in an emergency like that. And I was fascinated with it. So that kind of stuck with me. And I got into PR and who truly knows Jim? So Jim used to literally walk across the street to our campus and come to see us every once in a while. And so we got to learn from him some of that. And so I was quite interested, but when I started in pr, there wasn't a lot of opportunities as a new graduate from a new program, so I kind had to make my own thing.

(12:55):

So I got kind of into more marketing. I was doing a lot of web and event stuff, but I was back in my hometown and joined the fire department again. I had a passion for that. And the world's collided with a ice jam. And it was kind of funny how it all happened that day, but I called down to the incident command in the first 15, 20 minutes of the event, and I come down and my chief reed, why not appointed me as the scribe just to follow around with him and make notes upon what decisions he was making and observations and things on that sort. And after about 15 minutes of that, he starts to rattle through who he's appointing to different positions, and he says, Tim Conrad information officer. And I'm like, what?

(13:50):

It was quite a funny moment for me, and that's where it began. And it was from that point forward, I kind of just bounced along through different crisis and emergencies. That one was a really cool one because we had, it was a different time then satellite trucks showed up within an hour. We had three satellite trucks broadcasting live all the time, doing multiple hits an hour. And it was kind of neat. And that just grew, as I said, from there. So that was Bridgewater Fire Department. I went off to eventually work with the government of Nova Scotia, and my first day I got tapped on the shoulder to join the crew for the largest wildfire in their history up until that point in time for 40 something years. Yeah. So it was kind of got I say now, wrong place at the right time. So it's kind of a funny thing, but it's been really interesting. I have to say, I think I counted 21 disasters. I'm still not sure if that's the total, but yeah, and they're all different scales, so yeah.

Michelle Toma (15:04):

Yeah. I think the one thing that was very prevalent for me early on when I joined you all in Schwa, was your deep passion to help people. And to me that was sort of what drove everything that you did within our team and how we worked with the broader EOC to make sure that we were galvanizing everything we could in the way of information to reach out to people and give them the answers that they were looking for.

Tim Conrad (15:37):

Yeah. Yeah. I think too, I've been told I have a bit of a different approach to things, and mine's very empathetic, very much from empathy. And one of my mentors is Kim Blanchet. Kim was the lead with the Swiss Air tragedy in Nova Scotia and always loved sitting down and chatting with her. She's doing really neat projects today, and that was one thing that she kind of really instilled in me. It's like you always have to remember the people, the people, the people, the people. So that's in my head as I'm heading into anything I'm doing with that and any decision, what's the impact on the people? And I think sometimes it's easy for, especially in an EOC, it's chaotic.

(16:30):

You kind get stuck in those walls sometimes because it is so busy day to day and you don't see what's going on in the same way that others do. And so in the information role, we do get to see that we do get out into the close to the disaster so we can bring those human perspectives back. And that's really important. Stories and strategies as the most listened to public relations podcast in the world. Expert Gas all around the world explaining crisis communications, nudge theory, generative ai, communications, leadership, and the psychology of why we buy. You'll hear me in the episode, how to communicate when people won't Evacuate. What makes this podcast different is it focuses on stories, not a download of information. And I've been a listener right from the beginning, stories and strategies with host dug downs on all podcast directories and YouTube. Next question's around business continuity and planning is becoming more important today. Things like a website crash, a power outage, a loss of phone lines in a critical moment is something that I've experienced in multiple disasters and it makes things way more miserable. And business continuity plans, I've often heard them described as being only related to information technology. And then the other thing is some people believe it's a new thing that's just come along in recent years. So is business continuity only an IT thing and is it new?

Michelle Toma (18:08):

Both great questions. No, not new. But again, I think it sort of links back to an earlier point that I was making where if you have a business continuity plan or A BCP in place, how often are you dusting it off? How often are you testing it? And there, I think probably sometimes if you're in an organization where you're not prone to emergencies happening, the BCP is there, it needs to be there, but how often is it referenced? So not a new thing, but how you test and maintain your BCP is pretty critical, especially when it comes to crisis. No, I mean there are four main categories, and again, I researched this immensely in terms of looking for best practices around how to build A BCP. And there's four main categories. I mean, it loss is certainly one of the foremost situations that you could encounter, but there's personnel lost. And we could reckon that back to the pandemic when people were just unable to attend work, which dramatically reduced the capacity of the team. There is a loss of infrastructure. Was there frozen pipes that flooded the building? Was it burnt down? And I mean, we've certainly been in situations, I myself included work having worked the Fort McMurray wildfire where you have to be prepared for every scenario. And what is every scenario? Well, there's also, like you said, power outages. So infrastructure again is one of those things

(20:08):

When you're developing A BCP, it's really important to bring the best of the best in terms of subject matter experts together to identify what could we possibly encounter that could hinder our ability to communicate. And then you account for that with having different contingency plans in place. So they're not that hard to do, but they do need to be incredibly inclusive when it comes to any kind of situation you would encounter that would be preventative in the way of communications.

Tim Conrad (20:45):

And I can't say this enough, if you have an emergency, you're most likely going to have another continuity issue, jump in there. Saw that a lot in the pandemic especially. I don't even have many layers at one point in time with one point in the pandemic that I was dealing with these multiple issues at the same time. But I've almost always had in a disaster, something go wrong with technology that's quite, can be quick catastrophic. And it tends to happen when you need it the most, of course. And some of it is because you do attract, sadly, a lot of nefarious activity from those in the world that wish to cause harm. So I think it's really important for people to know that that's when you're going to probably experience it. That's when it's going to, because I find that disasters test every system, they push every system to its max, and if it's going to fail, it's going to fail then.

(21:57):

But then beyond that, all of this attention that you attract and so on, it really does test it. So really weave it in with how important it's to tie business continuity planning to crisis communications plan. We've had the discussion in the past about which comes first, and I've had it in a lot of organizations because they've mandated that we have a crisis communications plan. And I built a crisis communications plan before I had an emergency response plan in one organization, and then we built the emergency response plan, and I was like, well, we still need a business continuity plan. So then we built that. So then I had to go back and readjust the crisis communications plan. So I'm curious to what your thoughts on what order they should go in.

Michelle Toma (22:46):

Well, let's maybe just take the opportunity to give an example here. So if you are in a situation where you are enacting your crisis plan, and as you say Tim, that's when systems are tested the most. And so you lose your website or your telephone lines, or you lose several personnel to something erroneous covid or just whatever, what reference do you have to go, okay, how are we going to fix this? So I'm in a situation now where I've lost the website, I don't know what my recourse is. Where would you think that would be best defined in a business plan? So if you can, the BCP in MyLight has to come first because the crisis plan is always going to refer back to the BCP when something happens. Always, always, always. And in situations where we have, I've had to work crisis as soon as things have settled and we know that stakeholders are where they need to be, the next thing we would do is test the BCP against the crisis that we just had. Did it support it? Did it pass the test in terms of all of the contingencies that we put in place to make sure that if we lost some form of communication, we had an alternative very well-defined in terms of who the responsibility rested with and approvals.

Tim Conrad (24:23):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things that's really interesting is that approval piece when you get into an emergency, the emergency, when you get an EOC, it has a different structure and it doesn't follow the approval process that happens outside of there. And so that's the thing you have to be reminded of in that moment. And that could happen with a smaller crisis that you could experience as well, where the structure that you put in place won't match. So it's like you actually have to pre-do that. You get to pre-plan that. And

Michelle Toma (25:00):

I think it's also, as a communications person, it's incumbent to make sure that we're testing those critical documents with our upper management and executive to make sure that yes, you agree to this, here are the primary approvals and here are alternatives so that we're never in a situation where, because if there's a strict regimen around approvals, and they're always typically aren't, but especially during a crisis, we don't want to be caught not being able to engage our stakeholders at a critical time because an approval process has block ended us.

Tim Conrad (25:43):

Yeah, I've had that happen. I had that happen this past summer. I was in multiple EOCs, so I'm not going to name who, but it got stuck in an approval process. They didn't know who was going to approve it, and it just didn't end up going anywhere, which was challenging. So we need to make sure we have those in place.

(26:05):

When doo and gloom strikes, you want butterfly effect communications in your favorite contacts. We bring calm to chaos through effective communications. We believe ethical communications can guide populations and organizations to prepare, respond to, and recover from crises, emergencies, and disasters. But hey, we're not all doom and gloom. We do fun things too. We can help with projects like stopping glass from going in a blue card or grease, going down a drain, writing a report, or understanding how a community feels about something new. Maybe those aren't all that fun, but they are to us. When you are looking to engage, educate or expand, put butterfly effect communications in your favorites, find us at www.butterflyeffectcommunications.ca.

(27:08):

You've talked a little bit about this in this question I just asked, but kind of relating back to some of the things you said earlier around research and what we find sometimes, and particularly what we find when we're doing disasters or crisis, is not always positive. We often have quite a bit of negative come, and that's pretty normal. It's a negative event. That's just the reality of it. So you are coming and trying to bring yourself back up to a neutral and then positive situation, but curious as your perspective is something negative that happens? Is it a negative or is it an opportunity for something else?

Michelle Toma (27:54):

Yeah, you and I have had the chance to brainstorm on this a little bit because we both experienced in the past where, as an example, you might reach out to do a research project, a survey, and you get the responses back. And even though you might have certain ideas about where the performance might be, that doesn't always turn out to be the way that you hope. And so it's easy to look at that and say, we're just not doing as well as we could be. It's also easier to say, but that's an opportunity for us because we actually know where we're not performing the way that we need to. It's an opportunity for us to reengage our stakeholders and say we're going to do a better job. And that's critical. I mean, I can understand why people sometimes just want to jump to the negative, but there's always that opportunity into turning it into a positive where it's like, okay, but let's embrace this. We know where we're not doing how well we want to be.

Tim Conrad (29:06):

Yeah, I love the opportunity that's in negative, it's tough when you see a lot of negative, but there's always lots of things that you can work from. And the beauty of people being honest with you and ultimately telling you something maybe you don't want to hear is that you now know it and you now can work from something. Knowledge is power, so let's use that to our advantage and help to improve that. So that negative disappears and becomes a positive. Lots of opportunity there for that.

Michelle Toma (29:45):

And the other thing is, what you don't want is people to, when you see the results of something, it's not because of anything you've done directly as a team or as a leader. It's about perception, and it's the opportunity to change that perception. So I get where people are coming from, but it really sometimes is easier to say, this can be a real positive for us and our reputation and our longstanding relationships.

Tim Conrad (30:15):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you definitely deal with that perception in disasters. There's tons of perception that people have. Naturally we do that. If we don't know something, we'll fill in the blanks. And so that does allow a lot of negative to creep up, but at the same time, I've often found those are easy wins because it's just a perception fix. So it's like we just need to help people understand and give them knowledge so that they can not have that perception anymore and hopefully have a different perception. It might not be exactly what you want, but it's a step in the right direction. So yeah,

Michelle Toma (30:56):

Completely.

Tim Conrad (30:59):

So Michelle, it has been great to have you to speak on your experience from the 2023 wildfires and perspectives on communications in an emergency. You've just brought such an interesting perspective to the team, and I'll say this, so we hadn't seen each other in a long time when Mike Lian mentioned your name, and the next thing I know we're spending tons of time together, and one of the things that Mike said to me, he said, she's really good at making sure that people do things and get them done. And I was like, give me her number. And you were absolutely aware. You kept all of us accountable and helped keep things organized and in control. It was every emergency is chaotic, and you helped to bring some calm to that chaos, which was wonderful. So we had this team and I wanted to thank each of you in a unique way. So I had a friend do an illustration, and here it's

Michelle Toma (32:11):

Of me.

Tim Conrad (32:12):

Yes. So what do you think of your illustration?

Michelle Toma (32:20):

Well, so maybe people will be happy with this at the moment, but I'm at a loss. It's, I'm not sure what to say. It's remarkable you had that done for all of us.

Tim Conrad (32:33):

I did, yes. So everybody's got something that's unique to them, and you'll get to maybe get some stickers with your face on it, your illustration, and yeah, I just really appreciated everyone on the team with such a fantastic group. So thank you so much for joining the Butterfly Effect Communications team. I look forward to working with you again soon. Please, everyone else check out other episodes of this series and keep an eye out for additional podcasts that we are working on. Thanks, Michelle. I really appreciate you joining me.

Michelle Toma (33:12):

Thank you very much for the invitation to do so, and it seems I have a new piece of artwork to hang up, so thank you for very much for that love being part of this team. Tim,

Tim Conrad (33:21):

How lucky have I been to work with such wonderful people? I am super lucky. They bring their dedication skills and ethics to Butterfly Effect communications, and I'm so proud of the work that our team did, listening to residents, responders, and clients, and creating strategies to improve communication during and after the wildfires. You can reach Michelle Toma on LinkedIn or through her contact info in the show notes.

(33:51):

Thank you for joining us for the Wildfires Floods in Chaos Communications podcast. We are so appreciative of all of those who we work alongside, who take time from their lives and communities to help others, and we are loaded with pride for how responders react and residents respond. You can catch longer versions of this podcast on the YouTube channel for Butterfly Effect Communications, which includes photos, videos, and sample graphics from last summer. Thanks to the team at Stories and Strategies podcast, my friend Mike Brown with the Dark Poutine Podcast, and Kendra Stoner for voicing the guest bios. For more podcasts, learning opportunities and resources, visit www.butterflyeffectcommunications.ca. That's also how you can connect if you'd like to hire us for disaster emergencies, crises issues, or hey, even the fun side of public relations, we like that too. Thanks for joining us. Oh, hey, I forgot something. Do one thing that's this week. To get prepared for an emergency at home, try this one. Pack an emergency kit to keep your household alive for 72 hours. Include food, water, medication, and a list of anything you might need to add at the last moment. The Wildfires, floods and Chaos Communications podcast is a 2024 production of Butterfly Effect Communications Incorporated. Make sure you share it with someone and go back and listen to another episode. Okay, thanks.