Public relations pros offer advice for the next crisis

FARMINGDALE - All but about a dozen of Morgan Stanley's 3,500 employees in the World Trade Center made it out alive Sept. 11 thanks to a crisis plan set up after the 1993 WTC bombing. They'd been equipped with flashlights and a detailed evacuation procedure.

The Morgan Stanley case serves as

Crisis preparedness planning is an offshoot of the PR practice. Many firms offer it as part of their package to clients on retainer, and it's not just a matter of handling the press.

Crises can range from a disaster like a fire or flood to a death or serious injury on the job to a lawsuit, sexual harassment complaint or unflattering product report in the news media. About five out of six stem from management action, said Katherine Heaviside, president of Epoch 5 Marketing, a Huntington firm.

Hank Boerner, managing director of Rowan & Blewitt, a Mineola PR firm that specializes in managing crises, said there are two sides to preparation: operational and communications. The operational side includes having senior managers and legal counsel do a literal and figurative walk-around to determine where a company might be at risk, whether to a slip-and-fall claim or a management slip-up.

A plan must be drawn up that spells out who is responsible for what, including dealing with the government, the media, vendors, customers, investors and employees. "You never can plan for what really does go wrong," he said, but it is possible to come close.

Joan Cear, a senior vice president at G.S. Schwartz & Co. in Manhattan, was a media relations representative for the Long Island Lighting Co. in the late 1980s. She advises putting together a checklist of what must be done and when.

For example, someone should be specifically responsible for the blueprints or maps that emergency personnel would need in dealing with a a fire or injury. A phone chain should be set up to notify employees where they should report to work, if the building has been damaged. And each employee should designate someone to contact if they are injured or killed, especially if they live alone, Cear said.

Heaviside advises making the most senior company official available the spokesman to the news media. He or she should only give facts, doublechecked for accuracy and never speculate. "We have to educate them that 'no comment' equals guilt," in the eyes of the public, she said.

Security personnel should be briefed on what to do when reporters start showing up.

PR guru Howard Blankman advises clients to have all their company's computer data backed up off-site. Cear goes further, recommending a pre-designed "shadow" or "dark" Web site that is activated in times of crisis.