Crisis Communicating

I’m a Midwest boy. And, while we have to deal with tornados and floods, the vast majority of Midwesterners have never truly lived through either. I’ve never lived on a coastline decimated by a hurricane. I’ve never lived out west and experienced fires that annihilate neighborhoods and livelihoods.

And, while the ‘VID has changed our lives in ways we are still unpacking, it took being stranded in Texas during last month’s wintery blast for it to reinforce how completely helpless visitors can often be when things go wrong in a destination.

I’ve opined previously on how utterly useless radio traffic updates on the eights are for anyone from out of town…and I’ll use Chicago as an example. There’s a three-car pile-up on the Kennedy and traffic is down to one lane. Construction continues on the Ike (as in “the Eisenhower Expressway,” like anyone under 60 knows who he was) and traffic is congested there. The Edens and the Dan Ryan are running at normal speeds and that wreck on the Stevenson has finally been cleared. 

For a visitor, this means absolutely nothing. If I’m on the Kennedy, that’s I-90/94 north of the city (except when I-90 splits north to Milwaukee, then it’s the Edens). The Eisenhower is I-290 and the Stevenson is I-55. The Dan Ryan is also I-90/94…but south of the city. So yeah…for someone visiting Chicago and trying to make travel decisions on the fly in their car, local radio traffic reports are frustratingly worthless. And, don't get me started on unstaffed, automated toll booths. Welcome to our State, indeed.

All this became even clearer last month, as Terri and I found ourselves trapped in Texas during their devastating polar week from hell. And, let us tell those of you outside of Texas that the week was waaay worse than you saw on national TV. When we did have the (fleeting) luxury of power in our hotels, we could watch local news and national news. And the local news was heart-wrenching…which means it was likely 10 times worse than even we were seeing. The story got three minutes on the national news...and most of that was about the failure of "the grid," and not the human suffering on the ground.

So, there we were, accomplished travelers. We travel for a living. When something seems “off” about what we’re hearing regarding airline connections or we see divergent weather reports, we’re among the first to navigate an alternate route. Indeed, as we started our road trip to Texas, it was just supposed to be cold. It wasn’t until we arrived that it became clear it was going to be much worse.

So, now we are in-market. Businesses start shutting down right and left. We score an amazing take-out meal our first night in town…and then the power goes out at 2am. The next day, highways are becoming impassable. We ultimately traverse a few hours toward home before all thoroughfares north are virtually closed. Another hotel with intermittent power and, on day two, no water. And, we watch more suffering on local TV and a cursory nod on the networks.

Eventually we fold our hand, retreat to the closest airport and fly home…cue Dorothy.

I don’t tell this story for sympathy. Actually, that we got caught was a rookie move on my part. In trying to avoid driving north through the snow of the second storm, I opted to try to beat the storm by taking a northeastern route…and got caught in ice. Anyone who lives in the Midwest knows snow is better than ice. My bad.

I tell the story to suggest that DMOs may well have another role that many (outside the hurricane prone) may never have considered. How do we better serve the visitors that are in-market when something goes awry?

Like a visitor driving through Chicago and relying on traffic radio, we were blind in Texas. The online DOT maps were worthless and only rarely updated (and, I get it...this doesn't happen very often, so why invest in a better system). Local radio was no help as local radio, airing hour after hour of mind-numbing syndicated talk, isn’t local anymore. We had no source of information on which route out of town gave us the best shot of freedom. Local TV droned on that all roads were impassable while we watched semis cruise past our hotel at 60 mph.

While I recognize that there is a certain liability in providing travel information that may not jibe with official guidance (which is often overly conservative or hopelessly outdated), do DMOs have an opportunity (or responsibility) to be the one true source of in-market travel data? How can DMOs step in to cure the abject blindness we felt during that week in Texas?

While the knee jerk reaction could be that we would keep our websites and Social Media platforms updated on an hourly basis, that would ignore the reality that the vast majority of our visitors wouldn't think to consult us in an emergency. No, what we need to do is be the voice of the visitor to governmental agencies and media outlets to which visitors already turn for "official" information. We need to encourage them to consider the ramifications of uninformed visitors making unsophisticated travel decisions that could result in emergency services being unnecessarily diverted from resident needs.

Locals may know not to try to scale that hill on 259 in an ice storm...but visitors don't. Thus, such information is often more critical for visitors...and government and media need to be made aware that their responsibility extends beyond locals. DMOs are the perfect emissary to bridge these conversations...before the next travel crisis.