Posts tagged OEM
OEM Fails to Deliver leaves lives in peril
0July 11, 2012
There is a problem with Boulder OEM. They won’t send out media releases during an emergency. They won’t install a media email feed to their website. They have stopped the information flow during disasters and Boulder OEM is playing a dangerous game. Something must be done to change this culture of ignorance.
Offices of Emergency Management , OEM, are set up nationwide as part of American sheriffs departments. They are supposed to co ordinate efforts in disasters such as the recent forest fires here in Colorado. But often times they are the last to know. During the
Boulder Office of Emergency Management in action, but what action?Four Mile fire here in Boulder in 2010 they were essentially clueless as to what was going on in the field. Their media relations was terrible or non existent and their ability to deliver information about the fire did not exist. Information had to be gathered the old fashioned way, sneaking up onto fire lines, phone calls to fire, and sheriff, scanner traffic.
In 2012 during the near disastrous Flagstaff Fire the information from Boulder OEM was better, but still late and it was never distributed. There was no flow to media and the public. OEM did not send out media releases during this life threatening crisis. So for media organizations who depend of media releases sent to their news email, there were none. Why not? OEM decided that they would send tweets to twitter to alert media of new information. The problem with that is that a tweet is not a news release and only 20% of the population including media check twitter. OEM demanded that everyone go to their site instead of having a simple feed to everyone elses email for media updates. The move proved to be incredibly thoughtless and narrow minded. In an attempt to become “new media” Boulder OEM killed it’s ability to get out information.
They then insisted that they were the only ones with correct information thereby putting censorship on all fire information. Being that OEM is usually the last to know and the last to tell you, they are useless is a raging inferno like the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs. Only the Fire Department and Sheriffs department officers on the ground can help. For news media it means getting in there to get the story or listening to Emergency scanners.
Boulder OEM tells me that they no longer send out press releases nor do you have the ability for media to sign up to get updates. So they are essentially useless. OEM should have a feed to media. It is a common practice. The city of Boulder and Boulder County made huge mistakes with the Flagstaff Fire by not sending out media releases neither. They make an even bigger mistake by not having an email feed. On top of that their media relations designate KIm Kobel didn’t return phone calls during critical times. An email feed is dead easy to install and can be done on any website. The fact that they didn’t and won’t do it is pure negligence. No one from the city, county or OEM media relations staff would return our phone calls regarding this story. Tells you something right there.
from a city where nanny knows best
Jann Scott
Boulder Colorado
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Flagstaff fire; How the media did Jann Scott’s Journal
0June 29, 2012
KUSA channel 9 had extensive coverage during all newscasts, but best of all they were the only Denver media with live stream news casts and extended video news coverage online. For an web city like Boulder that is paramount. Channels 2, 7, 4, 13 lacked in all these areas especially online which was essentially non existent.
In the opening hours of the fire KGNU Radio went right to coverage and information of the Flagstaff Fire. They were telling Boulder automobile commuters exactly what is was they were seeing from the front seat of their car. Local radio is so important in a crisis like this. This is the first time in 30 years that I have heard KGNU be on top of a local crisis with wall to wall reporting. And they should be. That is their job during a city emergency. In the past they were disconectted from the community needs.
Even CU radio 1190 with their goofy college kid DJs actually managed to read the OEM news releases with out sounding like complete stoners. That is how the usually sound in the afternoon. On the second day the afternoon girl and her side kick boy did get off track by talking about their favorites in TV news and how hard reporters work. Trust me , they don’t work hard. Try ad sales. Try firefighting. But at least KGNU and radio 1190 were on the case telling Boulder drivers what the hell was going on.
KOA radio was terrible. Between Rush Limbaugh insulting us and baseball they were of little help with random 15 second reports. KOA is owned by Clear Channel the same conglomerate which owns KCOL. My last report ripped those idiots for not reporting the High park fire. Look , I am just saying , if you are a local radio station in Boulder Colorado and we have a major life threatening crisis, you damn better well drop your scheduled programming and get on the ball.
Boulder Police and Fire media relations still need a lot of work. The city didn’t send out any media releases at all. They depended on Boulder OEM who didn’t send out any news media releases either. The city mistakenly thought that all news media would get the word from the city psychic. Instead of mass press releases the city assumed that media would magically know to go to Boulder OEM. The city also tweeted every 30 seconds. The problem with that is that only 10 to 30 percent of Boulder uses twitter. So for the general population, isolating information flow to twitter on a threatening wildfire is a terrible mistake and lack of good judgement. They should have sent out press releases. And OEM needs a better signup.
Boulder OEM website makes it difficult to receive press releases. They hide the place where you sign up by covering it in a mush of graphics. When you finally get there, you have to go through 15 steps just to get a damn email sent to you. Unlike feedburner or our site which take two steps. I mean, there is something very screwed up about that. Then OEM does not have a media contact or phone listed. When you finally do get to the right person ( after calling everybody else) she won’t return your phone calls. wtf?
Facebook had zero coverage worth noting. Twitter behaved themselves better that they did in 2010. They were notoriously rude. But twitter is still just a plain ole forum with pictures, stories gossip and OMGdz. Twitter is a small club of well educated house wives and office workers. They represent 30 percent of Boulder at most. But they are not mass media. What about the main body of Boulders population?? How do m you reach them immediately in a crisis.
Real mass media in a time of crisis comes from good old fashion AM or FM radio. In Boulder there are only two. KGNU 88.5 FM or CU’s radio 1190 AM. But the city nor the county plan around them. They pretend they don’t exist which is another dumb thing they do. These radio stations should be the first to know.
As far as Boulder Channel 1? As soon as we found the press releases on OEM, we published them. We did a live TV internet cast for one hour on the first evening of the fire from Fairview high where all the fire crews were staged. Citizens were there too. We could see the air assault, the fire, everything. In the past two days we ran live Fire scanner feeds on TV so the entire community could listen in. It was compelling. Now, with a little more rain, hopefully this thing is over.
Jann Scott’s journal
where it just keeps on burning
Boulder colorado
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Four Mile Fire in Boulder could have ended up like the North Fork fire : loss of life
2April 29, 2012
If it weren’t for the early actions by the Boulder County sheriff the Four Mile Fire surely would have ended in loss of life. That seems lost on this community still to this day. Just how dangerous that fire was needs to be examined.
I have had some experience covering Forrest fires. They now call them wild land fire, but I prefer forest fires when they are in the trees. In the 80′s I covered the Black Tiger Fire which destroyed over 40 beautiful homes up on sugar loaf. I covered the Yellow Stone park fire and most shockingly the Storm King Fire near Aspen where 13 smoke jumpers lost their lives. So I knew just how rapidly a fast moving forest fire could kill people.
When the ferociousness flames of the Four Mile Fire hit on Sunday morning Labor Day weekend 2010, I new we were in big trouble. I was up on flagstaff Mountain when it started, talking with a city of boulder Parks open space officer. I could hear all the radio traffic coming in to his truck radio. He had about 7 channels going. The most frightening ones were all of the fire crew channels.
It was bad. People were running for their lives. Fire crews were running for their lives. And the fire was running right up the mountain buring everything in its path. The fire had started at about 10:30am, but by noon I knew we had lost over 100 homes and the winds were still blowing. I got out my laptop and started to write.
The fire had crested Sunshine Canyon road and was on the move down the other side. As a reporter I started reporting what I heard and saw from Flagstaff. Boulder OEM hadn’t opened yet, and I could not get any assistance or information officially on the fire. I decided, to hell with it and not wait. First why wait? Secondly this fire was a potential killer.
I sat in the Boulder Channel 1 TV production truck and then did our first video from Flagstaff with the fire as a back drop at 11:30. Donna Marek, one of our reporters wrote the first story at 11:10. She was talking with fire crews from Downtown Boulder. Ron Baird our news editor called me on my cell and had the first report from the city at 11:40 . He filed the second story.
Ron Donna and I talked about how serious this was. It was decided that I should post the life threatening stories based on what I heard on the radio and let resident know this was a fire storm and get the hell off the mountain. Before I did, I talked with Patrick Vonkeyserling, the city PIO. He told me he couldn’t confirm anything, but it was really really bad and that if i could use social Media: ie Twitter and our on line news paper, it would help get the word out to people up on sunshine.
With that I started posting stories and updates: ”People are running for their lives” “We are going to burn to death” “3 feared missing dead” “possible corpses found near burned out Car” Over 30 updates in the first 3 hours.
The idea was to shock people into leaving their homes and not wait. People from Sunshine and the surrounding area started to tweet and call me. “should we leave?” were the questions. “Yes I replied , get out now”. People on twitter said don’t listen to us, that we were fear mongering. To witch I replied get out now or burn to death in your homes. Ron Baird called me and said.
“fuck the people on twitter just keep reporting what is going on.”
In the aftermath of Four Mile Fire , the Four Mile fire chief thanked me for our aggressive coverage early on. You helped us evacuate people he told me one day over coffee at Great Harvest Bread.
But I had taken a lot of flack from the Twitter community following the fire. At the time I was really upset by their reaction, but now I realize they were just upset viewers and readers who had no idea or access to what was really happening up in Fourmile. I did. I had a direct line to dispatch, OEM, Sheriffs, the Forrest service and I was sitting in a city open space truck taking it all in from a vantage point. I never should have paid any attention to twitter.
During the days of the fire, Boulder chief, Larry Donner told me that the fire was moving up to 40 miles per hour early on and was spreading embers the size of house shingles 1 mile in front of the flames. He said most people go into denial and under react and that’s when they get killed. He also told me it was good that I scared the hell out of everybody and made them move during the early stages.
He said, as did the Sunshine chief , the people on twitter were wrong to criticize you. “You did the right thing even though there were no deaths. “You scared people into action and that is what’s needed in a fast moving wild land fire. But criticism comes with the territory.” he said.
The sheriff was criticized for cutting the power all over the mountain area. He wanted people uncomfortable and he wanted them to get out! The truth is it is a damn wonder people didn’t lose their lives in that fire. Yep, we caused fear and shock in our reporting. We intended to. Hopefully, we helped save some lives. The alternaticve to agressive evacuations is what happened at the North Fork Fire. In hind sight we’d report it the same all over again.
I had apologized to the twitter people for a week. But it did no good. They had their minds made up. We did our jobs at Boulder channel 1. Thanks from the fire departments was icing on the cake.
Interesting Ron Baird who is a seasoned editor and Donna Marek a seasoned reporter, kept telling me. “Don’t listen to Twitter, they don’t know what you know. Just keep telling the story as it unfolds.”
Jann Scott’s Journal
from Boulder Colorado
