By Richard Levick
No disaster ever politicized faster.
Contrast Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Andrew that hit Florida in 1992, after which the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA's) culpability also was scrutinized.
However, the attacks on the agency at that time did not carry with them radioactive implications about big-government or ruling-class attitudes toward the poor. Katrina blew all
those implications onto the front pages and the news shows.
We need to define the subliminal forces at work. In particular, we should look at how two superior corporate responses to the crisis were interpreted as advancing an
ideological agenda.
On Sept. 9, the Wall Street Journal ran a B1 story that detailed efforts by the Oreck Corp. to begin manufacturing vacuum cleaners fewer than two weeks after
Katrina disabled its New Orleans office. To touch on a few salient narrative points, the 15-year-old son of an Oreck executive built a makeshift Web site on which employees could
post messages. Meanwhile, Oreck assigned workers to find generators and mobile homes for displaced employees. Oreck execs flewto Mississippi to treat employees to a barbecue, to
give them their weekly pay and to start up two assembly lines.
High-volume press followed, all favorable to Oreck. On Sept.12, the Journal ran another story, "At Wal-Mart, Emergency Plan Has Big Payoff," with the lead, "The
Federal Emergency Management Agency could learn some things from Wal-Mart Stores Inc." As soon as Katrina was reclassified as a tropical storm, a Wal-Mart executive camped out at
an emergency command center. Warehouses were ordered to deliver emergency supplies to designated areas. When Wal-Mart's computerized inventory system was disabled, phone
operations successfully took over. Scores of Wal-Mart trucks were delivering generators and tons of dry ice to stores throughout the Gulf.
By Sept. 9, all but 15 of the 89 stores affected by Katrina reopened. According to the article, "Whereas FEMA has to scramble for resources...Wal-Mart has it own trucks,
distribution centers and dozens of stores in most areas of the country. It also has a specific protocol for responding to disasters, and it can activate an emergency command
center to coordinate an immediate response."
The Journal story ends with one more jibe at Big Government. Sheriff Bob Buckley of Union Parish, La., praised Wal-Mart for providingtruckloads of food and gear. "And
when did FEMA arrive?" the reporter asks? "Who?" Sheriff Buckley responds.
I doubt Sam Walton would be upset to learn his company's triumph amid adversity was used to fuel an implicit attack on the government in favor of private-sector efficiency.
Yet, in my view, such messaging should unsettle people on both sides of the culture wars.
At best, it's a self-serving effort to support an ideological agenda in the wrong way and at the wrong time. It's also meaningless. What does a public-sector failure amid
disaster mean? That we should continue to simply despise the government on general principle? Yet it is that very contempt for the power of government that made the government so
powerless after Katrina.
The Oreck and Wal-Mart examples prove just how "right" effective private-sector response can be. For example:
- Have a story to tell (and be sure there's a happy ending).
- Tell it as a narrative (a riveting day-to-day chronicle of decisive actions is perfect).
- Cast the narrative effectively (a 15-year-old Web maven is right out of central casting).
- Use third-party supporters (in this case, an African-American couple who needs what Wal-Mart is selling is ideal).
- Leverage your story (in this case, with more publicity for corporate giving than what corporate giving usually gets).
Still, such weapons in the hands of expert corporate communicators - doing their jobs honestly and conscientiously - create perilous imbalances. They further wound a crippled
public sector, and they help ensure that neither federal nor state officials will be in any better position to respond next time.
Contact: Richard Levick, Esq., is president of Levick Strategic Communications (Washington, D.C.). Levick can be reached at [email protected].