1 / 14

The 2013 Moore, Oklahoma F5 Tornado and Civil Air Patrol: Selling Our Story

BY: Capt. Rick Rutledge OKWG CAP Public Affairs Officer Broken Arrow Comp. Sq. – Tulsa Area Deputy Commander Public Affairs Officer Emergency Services Officer. The 2013 Moore, Oklahoma F5 Tornado and Civil Air Patrol: Selling Our Story. ABOUT ME. Joined CAP: 1996 (cadet)

homer
Download Presentation

The 2013 Moore, Oklahoma F5 Tornado and Civil Air Patrol: Selling Our Story

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. BY: Capt. Rick RutledgeOKWG CAP Public Affairs OfficerBroken Arrow Comp. Sq. – Tulsa Area Deputy CommanderPublic Affairs OfficerEmergency Services Officer The 2013 Moore, Oklahoma F5 Tornado and Civil Air Patrol: Selling Our Story

  2. ABOUT ME • Joined CAP: 1996 (cadet) • Senior Member Since: 2010 • Prof. Develop: Level III • Specialty: Public Affairs, ES, Cadet ProgramsRatings: • PAO – Senior (master pending) • ES – Technician • CP - Senior AGE: 30 years old STATUS: Happily Married INTERESTS: Flying, Emergency Management, Media, Media Strategy, Producing, Poker, Weather (Storm Chasing) By day I program two radio stations for the Journal Communications cluster in Tulsa. One is a Top 40 musical format, the other is a “Variety/We Play Anything” format. I’m husband to my beautiful (and understanding of CAP) wife Aurora and father to two boys ages 8 years and 2.5 weeks.

  3. DAY ZERO • SPC Issues Forecast Discussion regarding potential for severe weather outbreak two full days before everything began. • OKWG DOS conducts conference call on Sat 18 May 2013 – OKWG CC, DOS, Chief of Staff, PAO, ES Officer, WG Sq CCs, ICs, LO, State Director • Potential command and control facilities identified, Key personnel identified, plan for mass response finalized (put into play) and a call for resource readiness made. Also we discussed movement of CAP aircraft where necessary to keep assets safe. • Contacts were made with EMs in every county and municipality across the state which paralleled initial response press releases sent to media contacts across the state. • Local squadron PAOs contacted separately from the conference calls/press releases, asked to maintain readiness and to standby for support at mission base or from home.

  4. The Storms 19 May 2013: DAY ONE

  5. The Storms 20 May 2013:DAY TWO

  6. The Response • STATS: • 50+ Volunteers on the ground within 2 hours of the storm • 75+ Volunteers on the ground within 12 hours of the storm • By weeks end we were at 100+ from three wings (OK, KS, TX) with more wings on standby • 4 Aircraft with 8 different aircrews • Largest single tasking we’ve ever been asked to perform for FEMA • 13,000 homes to be photographed from end-to-end along the damage track • NHQ flew in an additional 8 crash kits just for this exercise • PAO Response: • Assess major mission areas • Make contact with on-site PIO • Make contact with CAP IC • Keep WG CC in loop on all correspondence • Establish contact with NHQ PA for major media requests • Begin to release initial press packets and news releases • WHATEVER YOU DO: Make sure the ground teams, MSAs, Aircrews, etc. DON’T TALK TO MEDIA!!! • Have printed copy of OKWG Crisis Plan on hand – JUST IN CASE

  7. Goals

  8. How? PRIORITIES: • Press Releases with generalized mission information • Facebook/Twitter/Wing Website Updates WITH contact info READILY available…. • Follow-up with EVERY media contact you’ve worked with on any other project • Identify where MEDIA HUB is located (usually at or very near incident command) • Pick who would be BEST on camera from mission command staff – MAY NOTBE YOU. • Make sure ALL briefings include PIO priorities PLUS uniform reminders • Prepare One-Sheets/CAPABILITIES Guides – Get them printed in mass numbers • SELL OUR STORY!!!

  9. How? CONSIDERATIONS: • Find an angle – THESE MAY CHANGE • LRGMP – Local Releases Get More Press • EMILY – Early Media Is Like Yeast • When dealing with network media ALWAYS focus on the volunteer angle – Works every time • When is press time? - PRINT: 1400 local (depending on where) - Television: 1 Day for network, 2-3 Hours for local • Give the media a REASON to run the story with EVERY release. Simple updates won’t get attention. • EDUCATE, EDUCATE, EDUCATE – they need to know who we are FIRST to set anything up…. • SELL OUR STORY!!!

  10. Process • Beginning of day: - Review press notes - Summarize PIO brief for morning briefing - Search Google/Bing/Yahoo! for news - Return emails/phone calls - Get updates and formulate new release • Lunch: - Call media contacts regarding AM release - Get updates from IC - Search Google/Bing/Yahoo! for news - Give mid-morning update to NHQ PA - Update interactive media • By EOBD: - Hit media row (generally two to three hours before first evening newscast) - Wrap up any interviews you may have away from mission site (phone, emails, etc.) - Give COB update to NHQ PA

  11. Results • Ran in more than 100 newspapers nationwide and 1 in the UK • Appeared in multiple national aviation publications (AOPA, Gen Aviation News, etc.) • AP carried story appears on more than 100 local affiliate websites • Crawl appearance on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC • Appeared on every local affiliate in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Lawton/Wichita Falls, Ada/Sherman Denison, Fayetteville/Springdale and Ft. Smith DMAs • Boeing corporation’s internal web newsletter appearance and video • 22 different radio stations (that we know of) • Story still occupies more than 13 pages of results on Google, Yahoo! And BING news • Shared audience of close to 1M with social media sharing • MASSIVE MISSION = MASSIVE AUDIENCE

  12. Lessons Learned • No matter what, all the planning in the world will NOT have you show up to the party completely prepared for every scenario. • Your local PAOs are your BFFs – BUT STILL PROOF THEIR WORK • The AP can help you more than you can help yourself. • Don’t be afraid to be a uniform NAZI – Someone will be caught on camera somewhere during the mission and never know • You need 3 people to photograph – 1 photographing the mission execution, 1 photographing the mission base activity and 1 photographing you getting press • MAKE SURE YOUR SQUADRON OR WING HAS INVESTED IN A DSLR FOR PAO/PIO DUTIES ONLY…. • Don’t turn down any opportunity to get press – if the Slapout, OK Times calls, give them 2 minutes of your time, you never know who might read that story • The customer COMES FIRST before the public’s need to know • BE. AGGRESSIVE. GET. PRESS.

  13. Contact Me CONTACT: Email: Rrutledge@okwgcap.org Mobile: 405-410-7534 Facebook: facebook.com/rickoakesrutledge Twitter: @okwgcap www.okwgcap.org or www.brokenarrowcap.org

  14. Please complete the 2013 conference survey online for a chance to win a FREE registration to the 2014 conference in Las Vegas http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/13CAPConf

More Related