Creative Territory

Katherine Flood Recovery

When the Katherine River flooded in April 2006, memories of the 1998 floods – and the work required to recover the town to full potential – moved the Northern Territory Chief Minister to establish a Recovery Task Force before the floodwater receded.

Creative Territory was appointed to sit on the Task Force and manage all media, public and internal communications during the crisis recovery stage including:

coordination and management of all NT government media and information needs
advice to government on communication issues
establishment of a website
provision of a journalist on the ground, delivering stories and photos
all media liaison.

Creative Territory paid particular attention to the transition from the crisis to the recovery stage of the disaster, one of the most difficult times in terms of media and information management.

“During the crisis stage, everyone is focused on immediate needs,” explains Creative Territory Managing Director Tracy Jones, who has managed the recovery phase of a number of natural disasters in the Northern Territory.

“The crisis stage can actually be quite exhilarating for the various players involved – particularly the media. But as soon as the excitement is over the challenge for the media is to keep the story alive, so they move into the aftermath stage often before anyone else does.”

You only need to watch the media circus around the Beaconsfield Mine collapse in Tasmania to see how insatiable the media’s thirst can be in the absence of “new” news.

Less than a day after the miners were discovered to be alive, the media had already called in experts on health, diet, hydration, hygiene and psychiatry to provide a running commentary of how they were faring.

It took a full three days before mine managers were seen to be filling the vacuum with real information from real doctors and paramedics from the scene.

"There are plenty of definitions of the difference between an issue, an emerging issue, a crisis, an emergency and the recovery," Tracy says.

"My definition is simple – the transition to recovery begins the minute the media starts to play the blame game.

Tracy describes this transition as the danger period when your reputation is most likely to take a pounding.

“It’s important to not let a vacuum develop during this stage – a vacuum the media will fill with rumour, speculation and heart-wrenching stories of individuals who have slipped through the cracks,” Tracy says.

“And for people affected by the disaster, it is often the time when they feel like others have lost interest in their cause. So it is critical on both counts that you pay attention to filling any information gaps.

“In the end, it’s your reputation that suffers if the public and the media think you were only interested in the crisis when it was a big story. You need to keep on caring long after the glory of the crisis is over.”

Creative Territory gives clients the following advice during the recovery phase of any crisis:

Appoint your recovery team when the threat of the crisis is still emerging, so you achieve a seamless transition from crisis to recovery.
Be the authoritative source of information on the recovery. If you don’t, someone else will be. Just look at the Australian Workers Union's Bill Shorten during the Beaconsfield Mine rescue.
Coordinate all information through a central source so your messages are consistent and packaged in a user friendly way.
Do not let an information vacuum develop that may be filled by uninformed speculation or mischievous rumour.
Use the web as much as possible for basic information to stop the media and public tying up people and phone lines unnecessarily.
Make sure you don’t give the appearance that you have “packed up and gone home” once the “glory” of the emergency is over.
Make sure the media is delivered stories and vision in a format they can use and that they can access the people and information they need to do their job.

Find out more about the Katherine Flood Recovery at http://www.nt.gov.au/katherineflood

Creative Territory can provide media and reputation management on either a project or retainer basis. To find out more, contact us.