SBA * Consulting LTD

International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM)
Bulletin February 2011 Online Edition

Food Safety and Food Emergencies: Is the Word on the Street?

By Wayne Spivak, President, SBA Consulting, Ltd., Bellmore, New York

“Mayor Bloomberg asked New Yorkers not to drive and to call 911 only for life-threatening emergencies. – New York Post ¹

Communications with the public before, during and after an emergency are critical to the success of both the mitigation and response phases of that emergency. But what the messages contain, how they are provided, and when can make the difference between success and failure, when it comes to encouraging members of a community to keep emergency food supplies on hand and store them safely.

To quote FEMA’s description of the Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration’s Web page:

“Mitigation’s Value to Society:
• Mitigation creates safer communities by reducing losses of life and property.
• Mitigation enables individuals and communities to recover more rapidly from disasters.
• Mitigation lessens the financial impact of disasters on individuals, the Treasury, state, local and tribal communities.”²

Public Relations

For mitigation to work, the actors in the mitigation plan must be known. For without buy-in from government, industry and the public, mitigation plans just won’t work. Take the recent snow storms in the Mid-Atlantic states which tracked up the Northeast.

The storm(s) were predicted. The impact to a certain extent was known, and yet people did what they could to create havoc on the roads, at the airports, and elsewhere by not heeding the mitigation advice offered. In New York City, people ignored pleas not to take their cars out – and you guessed it, they got stuck and mucked up the clean-up effort. People went to the airport thinking their flights would get off, and they ended up living at the airport for several days. Then we had those who refused to take heed while shoveling the pretty white stuff. Results are heart attacks, back injuries and broken bones.

The same holds true of stocking up on foodstuffs, water and other necessary items in case of a prolonged interruption of normal services. Why bother? And then when people find out that they are late in the game to purchase supplies, the inevitable run on the supermarket occurs.

Is it an over-abundance of information or just a collective turning a deaf ear to the din that has become today’s norm? How many warnings can emergency management issue before the public just becomes immune to the message?

Major emergencies that interrupt, for whatever reason, our transportation system will ultimately result in the inability to ship and replenish our food supply. Having emergency foodstuffs on hand and making sure they are replenished is an ongoing job for the public. Unfortunately, it is a function that is not taken seriously by the average citizen.

Emergency managers need to get this message out before (and not just days before) a major natural event is to take place. Thanks to modern technology, we can predict most. A year-round directed campaign needs to be waged, with industries’ help, to keep important messages in the forefront of the public’s attention.

Mitigating the Mitigation

We also need to mitigate the mitigation messages and focus in on a smaller Venn diagram of disasterrelated problems, especially as events loom. Think about, for the public at least, the single most important message an emergency manager wants to convey. I’m not saying that we forget about all the other public and behind-the-scenes mitigation modalities, but I am saying that sometimes less is best. By using a little creative public relations, emergency managers can make their usual messages common- place and leave those few critical ones until just before an emergency.

•One way is to team with the retail food distribution industry to create signs that remind people to build an emergency food box. Include information on what types of foods should be in the box, their shelf-life and their nutritional value. A similar type of message can be used at pharmacies in regard to health-related supplies.

• Another such method or an addition to the signage is to provide websites to read. While there are literally hundreds of thousands, I found the best Google search term(s) to tell folks about is “food safety in an emergency.” With this search, I found the USDA Web page “Keeping Food Safe During An Emergency,”³ followed by “In an Emergency.”⁴ In third place was “Food Safety In An Emergency”⁵ from Ready.gov.

Conclusion

So is the word on the street? Yes and no – and mostly no, because what is on the street is with the muddle of other messages. Getting a clear message out can be accomplished in these budget-conscious times, cheaper than most think. By changing our approach and working with industry, we can and will be able to get this message out – “Keep emergency supplies, including food, on-hand, replenished and available.”

1) New York Post – Christmas Blizzard of 2010: Mayor Bloomberg defends NYC’s repsonse to winter storm, mass transit. By Helen Kennedy. Dec. 27, 2010. http://www.nydailynews.com/ ny_local/2010/12/27/2010-12-27_christmas_blizzard_of_2010_ mayor_bloomberg_defends_ nycs_response_to_snowstorm_ma.html#ixzz1ARoKAgwU

2) http://www.fema.gov/about/divisions/mitigation.shtm

3)http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/keeping_food_safe_during_an_emergency/index.asp

4) http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/emergency/

5) http://www.ready.gov/america/getakit/foodsafety.html