Jackie Krentzman is a Bay Area-based writer and editor. 

When the fires in Los Angeles County began encroaching on West Hollywood in January, Mayor Chelsea Lee Byers and the city had to scramble to implement a rapid response to keep residents safe. At the time, the city was just weeks away from approving its first crisis communications plan. Fortunately, the fire skirted the city. But the close call was a vivid reminder of why such plans matter.

“We adjusted quickly as the fires began, as the city council enacted an emergency response plan,” Byers says. “But it would have been great if we already had a crisis communications plan because when there’s a crisis in real time, the people who are closest are the best at making quick decisions to ensure public safety.”

West Hollywood is not alone. In recent years, cities across California have faced unprecedented challenges. Every city has had to learn how to adapt and react quickly in emergencies. Many have created their first crisis communications plan or fine-tuned existing ones to reach as many people as possible through as many communication channels as necessary.

“The 2016 fire season was a wake-up call for cities across California,” said Christine Brainerd, who helped lead the statewide association for public information officers (PIO) that year. “We quickly realized that wildfires don’t stop at rural boundaries. Urban communities were just as vulnerable.”

The experience spurred the group to renew its efforts to help cities communicate clearly, consistently, and compassionately during disasters. CAPIO launched the Emergency Communications Academy to help PIOs bolster preplanning, respond, build community, work with media, and more.

Lori Fowler, a PIO for Cal OES, has a great deal of recent experience managing emergency communications. During the January wildfires, Cal OES worked with cities to shape and disseminate their messaging, while also putting out its own.

The key, she says, is using as many platforms as possible and communicating frequently. This can include now standard channels like TV, radio, email, Nixle, and text, as well as newer apps like the California Earthquake Early Warning System.

“These tools are so important, but just as critical is cities letting people know that they must sign up for these services in advance,” she says.

Fowler cautioned that messaging must be judicious. “Messaging fatigue is a real challenge,” she says. “We learned that we need to be creative to get the message across to grab people, while at the same time adapting to shorter attention spans and the flood of information that inundates everyone’s phone.”

That creativity can include finding new — or repackaged — ways of reaching people. During the LA fires, the U.S. Forest Service posted maps of the fire’s progress at disaster recovery centers. “We must reach people where they are, and sometimes that means literally,” Fowler says. “Sometimes we tend to forget about the traditional tools that can work so well.”

Watsonville had a similar experience when the Corralitos Creek flooded in 2022, prompting a shelter-in-place order. To reach as many people as possible, the city used multiple communications channels, including the police department’s mobile app with push alerts. Some residents, notably older residents, did not have smartphones or social media access. Officials began going door-to-door, calling people, and distributing flyers. This helped ensure residents were ready for the next round of heavy rains, says City Manager Tamara Vides.

Key to a good crisis communications plan is leveraging relationships with other partners. Byers says building relationships in advance with local nonprofits helped West Hollywood reach a large swath of residents after the fires broke out. For example, West Hollywood has a significant older, Russian-speaking population, but does not have the means to issue regular communications in Russian. The community is served by several social service agencies, which funnel the city’s messaging to its clients.

“A trusted messenger is so important, as they know the people they serve intimately and their clients are often times more likely to trust them than the city itself,” she says.

Partnerships also help ensure that things go smoothly after the emergency. “We worked with cities and other organizations to set up in-person and virtual town halls after the fires, which played a huge role in recovery communications,” says Fowler.

But, with the widespread reliance on social media, the most trustworthy messages can get lost in the shuffle or distorted. When Watsonville flooded and false claims about the cause and city response began circulating, the city went on the offensive. In this case, social media was the city’s best friend.

“Social media is an incredibly powerful tool, and at a time when media faces staffing shortages, visual content produced by our city communications team showed that we were boots on the ground,” Vides says. “These videos showed the city actively cleaning up, preparing, and educating the community. Many of these visuals were even picked up directly from our social media pages and used by local media to show the public the city’s response in action.”

Crisis communications plans can cover more than natural disasters. In April, a college in Folsom hosted a large political rally that was expected to draw up to 10,000 attendees. The city learned about the event a couple of weeks beforehand. Thirty thousand people showed up.

“The event went off without a hitch, in large part because we had strong systems and relationships already in place,” says Brainerd, the city’s PIO. “It reinforced the importance of preparing for the unexpected — anything can happen, and it can happen fast.”

West Hollywood faced a similar challenge this past January. A group there staged a march commemorating the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Residents were fearful of violence, says Byers, which the city had to balance with the marchers’ right to protest and free speech. But the march and counterprotest were peaceful, thanks in part to the city’s communications planning.

Kasey Halcón also knows a lot about responding to crises. At the 2019 Gilroy Garlic Festival, a gunman killed three people and injured 17. At the time, she was the director of victim services for Santa Clara County. Two years later, she was in the same role when a man shot and killed nine people at the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. She says while it is difficult to prevent such tragedies, preplanning can expedite the response and potentially save lives.

“It’s very hard on the day of a mass incident to cold call somebody you’ve never worked with before,” says Halcón, now a deputy county executive. “Nothing can prepare you for that phone call. You go into a little bit of shock, which is why having prior relationships and response protocols in place is so important.”

Santa Clara County and its partners are already planning for several upcoming large events, including the FIFA World Cup next June. The planning goes beyond the city hosting the event, as fans will be staying in hotels and dining and shopping in surrounding cities.

“We are asking questions such as, ‘How do we ensure that we have enough security, sufficient egress and ingress?’” says Halcón. “There’s quite a lot of necessary collaboration between the county and the cities leading up to those events.”

Ultimately, the benefits of a good crisis communication plan go beyond emergencies. “So much about public safety revolves around knowing your neighbors,” Byers says. “When I and other city officials show up at neighborhood block parties or other meet and greets, we are always asking people, ‘Do you know your neighbors?’ ‘Who has a pet behind what door?’ The more people know their neighbors, not only will they be safer, but their community ties will be stronger.”