Communication in Emergencies: Urgency and Direction

From the perspective of an official responding to a particular emergency, the goal of communication is to convey a message to ensure a particular action. The urgent status of an emergency makes it critical that this goal is met.

This is not to eliminate the concepts of feedback and receiver input from emergency communications. In fact, emergency communication is not modeled as entirely linear, from emergency responders to the public, but should also be responsive to information needs from the public. In an emergency situation, however, the linear model of communication prevails.

The framework shifts with some environmental emergencies. Environmental emergencies can be long-term.

For example: a waste site found to be contaminating groundwater in a community. It could conceivable take years for the site to be identified, for the source of the contaminants to be determined, for funding to be identified for remediation, and for the water to be cleaned up.

This is not to imply that the emergency mentality should be maintained for years, but that a serious, urgent situation can exist over a long time frame. Here the linear model of communication often must shift to a more feedback and participation centered model in order for communication to be effective (21).

"Everybody move to the left." --Dr. Ivan Walks, Chief Health Officer of Washington DC during the anthrax crisis of 2001, describing the goal of public health in an emergency(20).

For example:

It seems a little silly to debate about how to tell someone to leave a burning building. There's not a lot of time for feedback. But designing an emergency evacuation plan in the case of fire could involve feedback to make a truly effective plan.