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consulting group who had had experience
during the NorWest Bank fire in Minneapolis
six years previously. Over two thousand staff
had to be relocated during the outage.
First Interstate’s plan centred on an emergency
operation centre (EOC) as the hub for
decision making. They had six EOCs across
California which included regular conference
rooms with enhanced communication and
media watching equipment. They had a regular
staff of about six who would service the
EOC and this was increased to twenty around
the clock, using volunteers during the incident.
Public affairs and employee information
were seen as a single responsibility given that
employees and their families would see
what was in the media and so should get the
same message from the bank. Because public
affairs and internal communication staff were
regarded as a special team within the business
resumption plan and because they had
recently participated in business disruption
exercises, they were called soon after the incident
at 1 am on the night of the fire.
This would be normal practice in PR terms
but often gets forgotten during a disaster
when the corporate culture is tested to its
limit. The plan decided upon was as follows:
• There would be a general policy of
honesty.
• There was a need to anticipate areas of
vulnerability, such as the issue of having
no sprinkler system. The bank was
installing one at the time.
• It was important to deal with perception
issues such as the loss of headquarters
and therefore the loss of the bank’s ability
to serve its customers.
• They must proactively provide the media
with a ‘we’re still in business’ angle so the
incident became a positive story rather
than a negative one.
Practical measures followed which included
the setting up of a media centre with twenty
phones by 6 am the morning after the fire,
including a customer hotline and arrangements
that allowed cameras and reporters to
interview and take photographs. One witness
said ‘I seem to remember that they had the
CEO being interviewed for American AM outside
the burned building at 6 am.’ They were
able to be confident because the personnel
involved knew the business continuity plan
and the people running it and were party to
new information as it became available.
Despite the fact that the bank did not have the
full picture when they went to press, it felt
confident enough to initiate an interview that
went out live and uncut. Thus the media were
able to put the emphasis on recovery to
counter the visual image of the burning building.
This is only possible if there is confidence
that the facts can and will back up the story.
The image portrayed was that of a wounded
giant getting back on its feet because it had a
plan to do so. The media also became important
in messaging the thousand staff in the
tower not to go into work, but to wait for
instructions. After this success by the First
Interstate PR department a new phenomenon
arose. The media’s attitude changed and
questions were raised. Was this arson because
some traders had been dismissed before and
the fire started in the trading room This
was never proved. Another question related
to the structure of the building. Was it now
sound, because it had to be stripped back to
bare steelwork. This proved to be okay. The
media centre was updated with news every
twenty minutes and briefed about the
approach to take in response to the questions
that were being asked. The small PR department
had to suddenly grow and deal with
searching questions over a prolonged period.
It had to consistently anticipate which
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors