Case Study: Austin IRS Building Plane Crash
Background
The city of Austin, Texas’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (HSEM) maintains a PIER site at www.austinhsem.com to communicate with the public and media. The city of Austin, like an increasing number of municipalities, established a PIER website to support emergency communications for the city through an Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) grant.
Challenge
On February 18, 2010, a pilot flew a small aircraft into a building in Austin, Texas. Immediately following the incident, witness accounts of the event were broadcast through Twitter and the story quickly made International headlines. Initial news reports said the building contained FBI offices and speculations of terrorism circulated. The media had quoted various police and fire officials but no one was speaking on behalf of the city.
Further investigation found that the building contained IRS offices, and that the pilot, Joe Stack, crashed his plane into the building because of grievances he had with the IRS. Many people were confused by the clutter of information and rampant rumors and were eager to find real answers and updates.
At the time of the attack, Candice Wade, Public Information Officer for the City of Austin’s HSEM, was attending the Texas Homeland Security Conference 80 miles away in San Antonio. In order to prevent speculations from spreading, Wade needed to release official information immediately.
Solutions
On her way back to Austin, PIER Systems and O’Brien’s staff contacted Wade to offer their assistance. At this time, Austin HSEM had just recently established the PIER platform to communicate preparedness information and manage crisis communications for events involving the Homeland Security and Emergency Management office.
As Wade gathered facts from her sources, PIER Systems and O’Brien’s staff collaborated with her remotely to monitor media reports, confirm facts, and assist her with producing official statements and incident updates. Additionally, they monitored Twitter for eyewitness accounts of the crash and compiled updates and images to publish to Austin HSEM’s PIER site.
“PIER is a remarkable crisis communication tool. Thanks to the staff of PIER Systems and O’Brien’s, Austin HSEM was able to communicate and respond to several media outlets, city officials, and citizens with just the touch of a button. I would highly recommend PIER as an effective and efficient tool to use during a crisis.”- Candace Wade
PIO for Austin HSEM
An initial statement and several incident reports were published to Austin HSEM’s PIER website and sent directly to media distribution lists which PIER Systems and O’Brien’s staff had compiled using PIER’s powerful media monitoring suite, PIER Media Tools. These lists replaced the existing list that Wade had on her office computer, but was unable to access because she was traveling directly to the scene. The HSEM PIER site had been pre-populated with over 400 names of city officials, community leaders and members of the area’s response community. Updates were sent to these important audiences along with the media.
PIER Systems and O’Brien’s staff were available to immediately assist in creating, posting and distributing authoritative information. This assistance continued throughout the day of the incident and the following day. With O’Brien’s staff in Houston, PIER Systems staff in Washington state, and Wade en route to the city of Austin HSEM’s command center, the city successfully distributed authoritative information and updates regarding the incident.
Results
The Austin IRS building plane crash demonstrates the unpredictable nature of a crisis and the potential local events have of rapidly escalating into International news stories. Although you can never predict the scale of a crisis, it’s important to have the technology and services available to communicate and respond during any adversity. The fast, frequent updates of information distributed to regional media and an extensive list of city contacts resulted in numerous positive comments about the effectiveness of HSEM’s communication during this event.
The city of Austin HSEM established the technology by using PIER to manage crisis communications and monitor media reports. PIER allows people to collaborate remotely to create information, as demonstrated with this case study, and provides the ability to release critical information and updates to the media and public quickly and efficiently following an incident. The incident clearly demonstrated that virtual communication response is a reality, that it works, and all communicators from organizations and agencies must include virtual response capabilities in their crisis communication plans.
Furthermore, the city of Austin utilized the turn-key services offered by PIER Systems and O’Brien’s to support organizations during crises and major disasters. When Austin HSEM did not have their own staff trained and available, O’Brien’s and PIER Systems staff were ready to immediately assist.
O’Brien’s and PIER Systems can help you respond to an event. We provide expertise and technology for organizations in need of minimal to full crisis and emergency response capabilities. We offer various levels of services including turnkey response management, additional resources to fill the gaps in your own team and technology solutions to improve existing capabilities.
