NYC Mayor Bloomberg and Hurricane Irene

I've spent the last week worried about a long-planned trip to New York City. Hearing about the pending Hurricane Irene messed up a schedule I had organized. But I needed to be in New York for an engagement on Monday.

This is a post about NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg. From my vantage point, he and his office did a fantastic job readying the city for the storm. I had been watching his response to the upcoming weather event with more than a casual interest because of my travel plans.

Based on what the Mayor's office was saying, I decided to arrive in New York one day early - Saturday morning - the day before the storm's arrival. I rode out the storm in a hotel room, venturing out a few times when it was safe in order to snap some photos.

Communicator-in-Chief

In the run up and during the peak of Hurricane Irene, Mayor Bloomberg himself delivered detailed press briefings nearly every few hours which were broadcast on the Web, television and radio. A transcript was offered. There was a sign-language interpreter. Information was also available in Spanish, sometimes delivered by the Mayor himself.

Mayor Bloomberg faced a difficult decision regarding evacuation of the zones that were prone to flooding. A detailed map was offered on the Mayor’s site along with Hurricane safety information. Tens of thousands of people were under mandatory evacuation orders and the NYC ran 81 emergency shelters (many manned by ordinary city employees such as accountants).

One of the most important decisions was to move 9,000 people from senior homes and hospitals because of a fear of power outages. Officials were particularly worried about being able to serve anyone who had an emergency medical condition.

The city shut down the entire mass transit system (the first time this has ever been done) and elevators were ordered shut down for fear that power would go out and trap people in the elevator cars. Central Park, a massive area, was completely closed.

Making these sorts of decision is the true test of a leader.

If you lock down the city and the storm is a non-event, you look silly. If you don’t take the storm seriously and then there is a dangerous situation (like Katrina), then you look like you’re out of touch.

Prior to the storm nearly everyone I ran into was taking the Mayor’s warning seriously. People who were told to evacuate did so. There were very few people out during the peak of the storm (I checked out my window). As a result of New Yorkers heeding the warnings, there were very few casualties.

Mayor Bloomberg is a true leader. He was the chief communicator during the situation. He did not delegate the role of spokesperson. His real-time briefings were everywhere you turned on television this past weekend.

It may be cliché, but Mayor Bloomberg said this afternoon that the crisis brings out the best in New Yorkers and its true. Crime was lower than normal and 911 emergency calls were also lower than normal. People helped one another.

Learning from Mayor Bloomberg

I think all leaders - company CEOs, nonprofit heads, university presidents and others - can learn from Mayor Bloomberg. When an emergency or crisis situation develops, you yourself need to communicate. Get out there and let your public know what's going down.

Sadly many CEOs don't communicate. Think BP, Toyota, and others who hide behind spokespeople. Don’t do that. Look to Mayor Bloomberg as your model of successful communications.

Comments

[Amber_Cargile]

David, I've handled crisis comms numerous times, including on the ground in Haiti after the earthquake. Your summary is excellent and I couldn't agree more!

[twitter.com/douglaskarr]

With much respect, I'm going to totally push back on this. If Irene had hit full force, the city flooded, and lives lost - you wouldn't be congratulating anyone. The only reason why this all sounded great is because the storm didn't hit hard.

Had Irene hit as hard as Katrina, no one would be cheering the communication program of Mayor Bloomberg. If you look back in the archives pre-Katrina, you'll find the same warnings from local, state and federal resources.

The communication didn't matter in the end... it was whether or not the leaders actually planned and executed their emergency programs. The action was where they fell short. Our politicians are somehow under the impression that a lack of decisiveness can be covered up by lots of meetings with reporters. Don't cheer them on.

Thank goodness for New York and the rest of the East Coast that Irene didn't hit hard... you should be thanking Irene, not Bloomberg.

[Jeff]

I agree, he did a good job with pre-storm communication, was clear, concise and had to go mass media to get people to listen. The best chance to avoid massive pain in the event that the storm had packed the wallop some predicted is to get people out of the worst areas. Many of the pre-emptive strikes of shutting down power and evacuations went off pretty well.

I wonder now that the weather "experts" got this so wrong, if people will listen the next time there is a pre-emptive disaster announcement?

Jeff

[Joel Heffner]

>>The communication didn't matter in the end... it was whether or not the leaders actually planned and executed their emergency programs.<< I don't really understand. In this case, there certainly was a plan and it was carried out. The entire transit system was closed down...for the first time ever! People were told to go to shelters who were never told to go to shelters before. For those of us who have lived in NY for our entire lives, we know that the planning matched the rhetoric.

[Davina K. Brewer]

Was just polishing off my own post for tomorrow on this when your tweet caught my eye. ITA from the reports I've seen, TPTB in NY and NJ, etc. did a good job getting word out, taking charge, requiring evacuations, etc. To Douglass' point, yes it goes without saying that if the storm was worse it of course would have had a much more significant impact regardless but in this case, I think the combination of strong media warnings along with firm executive decisions - mandating transit shutdowns, for example - would still have made a difference. FWIW.

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks for these comments. And on a Sunday too.

@douglaskarr - Thanks for offering your views but I do not agree with you. While it is likely that If many people had lost their lives, I probably would have not done a post about Mayor Bloomberg's communications efforts (because the post would have seemed uncaring), I still believe that he did an excellent job.

Yes, after 25 years in the working world in roles such as head of Corporate Communications & VP marketing at public companies and now as a writer and speaker about marketing & PR, I do think I am able to separate the actions from the communications.

Having been in NYC for the past three days, I see that the city did both -- action and communications. But this post was about just the communications aspect.