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Disaster Preparation Risk Communications are Challenging

Coordination is hard during disasters

  • Leadership plays a central role

  • Communities/families/individuals make their decisions and take action

  • Rapid and trusted communication is the most important factor

  • Tribal Nations:

    • Historical reasons for mistrust of government risk comm
    • Language translation challenges
    • Lack of incorporation of Tribal Council viewpoints

  • Standard strategy of sending one way blanket alerts has been useful but has many limits

  • Town halls and surveys have value, but also leave communication gaps

  • Modern technology allows for two way phone messaging

    • But we need new methods to take advantage of that possibility

  • Lets roleplay to explore how to use the technology

Imagine you are expecting heavy floods on a reservation and there are people living in a flood-prone area. Before the flood hits, it’s your job to make sure that they evacuate to a shelter, or can shelter in place.

Given the flood risk in your community. Responders are working to understand its extent people will participate in evacuation and what are some of the challenges they may face. Community members need to decide what to do, and

Community members must make decisions about where they go to meet their needs

Shelter managers have the complex questions of - What are people's needs? - Where are they/where will they go?

Leadership needs to allocate resources beforehand to make sure infrastructure is in place.

What if they could communicate beforehand, to plan together?