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Page 6 of 9
multiple senders
Typically many agencies cooperate in response to an emergency, and
communication with the public is one aspect of the response that must
be coordinated among the agencies. The content of warning messages may
originate with different responding agencies, but it is important that
messages to the public are consistent with one another, and their
dissemination coordinated to achieve best effect. Inconsistent messages
will lose credibility; too many messages will lose effect; too few
messages will have inadequate impact.
In the event of an emergency, the Western Australia State Public
Information Emergency Management Support Plan specifies, "the HMA will
manage the public information function for the overall operation".
However, the plan also states that, "as a principle, each agency may
address the public and the media but only on issues which are their
responsibility. Matters that are not their direct responsibility should
be referred to the appropriate agency or the Emergency Public
Information Coordinator." In addition, "all agencies are to be kept
informed of information provided to the media and public" (State
Emergency Management Committee 2002).
"The process of warning is complicated by the fact that it requires the
accomplishment of a number of tasks, and because these may have to be
carried out by different organizations, coordination is required among
them. For example, the determination that adverse weather will lead to
unusually heavy rainfall is usually made by the Weather Bureau. This
might alert the local flood control authorities to the possibility of
flooding and the subsequent detection of impending dam or levee
failure. The decision to issue an evacuation directive might then come
from the sheriffs department or the office of the county executive. But
the conveyance of the message to the public is often carried out by
local commercial radio or TV stations." (Auf der Heide 1989)
"FESA is often not the only Hazard Management Agency. Outside the
designated fire district, Local Government or CALM have this
responsibility. Never the less, in the case of Local Government, FESA
is often expected to disseminate this important information. To date
it has been an adhoc system and more work needs to be done to formalise
processes to ensure consistency " (Provost 2003)
In large, rapidly emerging emergency events, coordination between
responding, supporting, and managing agencies requires a high level of
overhead, and maintaining this effort in the context of an emergency
can be problematic.
The need for a reliable, coordinated approach to disseminating
information originating from diverse hazard management agencies has led
emergency professionals and incident inquiries to call for a
centralized entity with this responsibility for public warnings.
"The most common criticism relating to evacuation on 18 January was the
lack of a consistent message. Submissions reported mixed
messages—public announcements advising people to stay with their homes
and fight the fires if they were capable and prepared and, on the other
hand, orders to evacuate from police on the ground." (McLeod 2003)
"ACT Policing’s submission to the Inquiry commented: Issues of media
liaison and coordination highlight the need for one physical or at
least ‘virtual’ centralised information collection and dissemination
point, definite coordination and sharing of information to obtain a
common approach, and the benefits of senior officers liaising and
agreeing on the content of media releases …"
"There should be greater coordination of the content of whole-of government media releases and messages." (McLeod 2003)
"A preferred model would be a "whole of government" approach to the
task of disseminating emergency information. This would see a
combination of, if not all, the above options being disseminated out of
a central emergency information point. This would allow FESA, CALM and
Local Government to send their information about wildfires to a
separate, independent entity and have it disseminated from there."
(Provost 2003)
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