Sunday, May 3, 2009
For this blog we are supposed to write about our communication crisis research paper. I am going to do my research paper either on Valley City or on Valley City State University. This is the only time that I have ever had to deal with any major flooding and it has taught me some valuable lessons about what should be done in order to make things go smoothly with the public. In times of crisis it is very important to get your messages out quickly and that they can be easily understood by the public that needs to hear and understand them. The closest I have come to any kind of flooding before was when Lake Metigoshe got really high and flooded some basements, but that did not require the crisis communications that have been required this year across the whole state. The people of Valley City seemed to have the communications process down fairly well and got messages out to people fairly quickly and they were pretty clear as to what they wanted from the people in the area to do. One thing that I thought was really effective is that the city and the Valley City State University campus worked together and this seemed to help get the word out through emails to the students so that they knew where they were needed and could help when they had the time. Another thing that was used well was the emergency whistle in town. By using the whistle it let the citizens of Valley City know that there help was needed again and they should meet at the winter show building and help sandbag. Also the morning meetings with the officials from the different groups that were involved what was going on and the citizens was a very good idea because people could bring up their concerns about what was happening and what was yet to come. I felt the Dr. Steven Shirley did an excellent job of making sure that the staff and students were notified of what was going on and what was happening around the community and campus. Also I think that the campus was very accommodating to the students so that they could assist in the sandbagging effort and communicating with the students about what was going to happen with classes for the days during the sandbagging effort. Also they have been very helpful in assisting the students since campus has been closed.
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Dr. Shirley has definetely done a fantastic job of coordinating with city officials to help with the sandbagging efforts. The staff and faculty did an excellent job of keeping us in check with assignments and making sure we were all getting caught up and not falling behind. This whole online thing is a bit crazy and hard at times, but in the state that the city and university is in, it was the only solution. What a way to graduate!
ReplyDeleteI think this is a good idea for a topic because you were affected by this for the first time. I think communications were good in the crisis because everyone seemed to know what was going on. You mentioned the sandbag whistle which somee other people didn't mention, but, I think was a big part of saving the city. Without all of the help of people making sandbags, what would have happened to the town of Valley City?
ReplyDeleteNotification, accomidations, emergancies ect were all hadled so well. So many people that I talked to would refer this situation to the flood of 1997. Even though this crisis came fast everyone was ready to react because of past experiences. I wonder if our cities have been preparing for this natural disaster since 1997.
ReplyDeleteHey Josh, I could not agree with you more. This was also my first year sandbagging to help save a city. I come from a farm that flooding has never happend. The only experience Ive had is seeing many township roads washed out. It is good that this flood was an eye opener to you, because if it wasn't WOW! It sure was for me also, the power of mother nature is like that of no other. In Valley Cities case you know their had to be effective communication because the town was basically saved.
ReplyDeleteThe people of this town shoudl be proud!
Good Blog!
The communication from VCSU and Valley City were both very effective. They made sure to keep all the citizens of town and students of campus informed on what was going on. They both seemed to have plans in place for what to do in this type of situation. I am guessing that they have gone through a flood before seeing as how the town is built around the river. This probably gave them many opportunities to setup plans for times such as flooding of the river.
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