The Leading in a Crisis Podcast

EP 38 Lahaina wildfire response - part 2 of our conversation with Michael Brogan

Tom Episode 38

Send us a text

Ever wondered how coordinated disaster response efforts come together in the face of devastating wildfires? Join us on this week's Leading in a Crisis as we sit down with Michael, who has firsthand experience on the ground during the Lahaina wildfires in Hawaii. Discover the intricate role the US Army Corps of Engineers played in uniting federal, state, and local agencies, and how crucial it was to integrate local knowledge and resources. Michael elaborates on the EPA's missions, including hazardous material removal and essential water operations, while also highlighting the importance of involving local contractors and cultural monitors. You'll gain a deep understanding of the cultural significance of daily pule gatherings, which provided much-needed spiritual support and unity for the response teams. 

Michael brings forth invaluable lessons from crisis management, emphasizing humility, teamwork, and the courage to speak truth to power – essential insights for younger responders navigating overwhelming situations. 

We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.

Tom Mueller:

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a Crisis podcast. I'm Tom Mueller. Thanks for joining us. On today's podcast, we continue our conversation with Michael Brogan. Michael is a public information officer for the US Environmental Protection Agency and worked the response to the Lahaina, H hawaii, wildfires last year that resulted in 100 people being killed and just a horrific decimation of a local community there. It was a very emotional kind of response to be part of. Michael shares some of his stories with us, working as part of a unified command there on the ground. Let's rejoin that conversation now with my colleague, mark Mullen.

Marc Mullen:

So, structurally speaking, which agency served as the head of unified command? As the head of Unified Command, was that EPA by your federal role, or was what agency served in that role?

Michael Brogan:

No. So the US Army Corps of Engineers is really the lead agency. You know they've got the. They're the lead. According to the National Command structure. Us Army Corps of Engineers has the big pool of money. Actually they're paying, like when I was there deployed, it wasn't EPA that was paying my tab, it was US Army Corps of Engineers. They're the big guns and they really call the shot and they've got the big picture. Everybody lines underneath them and so ultimately, that's who we and everybody else answers to. I will say superb organization. And they operated with a clear structure and they were very much aware of, you know, the challenges that I've been speaking of, and so they had a very firm grip on the overarching operation, but it wasn't a tight grip, if that makes sense.

Marc Mullen:

Guided grip. Guided grip yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, so did the state maintain a voice in the response structure then, or were they as overwhelmed as the county was?

Michael Brogan:

The state and the county did a lot of coordination, you know. And then the state also did a lot of coordination with the federal agencies pardon me, a lot of the federal agencies as well. Yeah, there was just a lot of coordination. But really, if I had to say, okay, who did we do most of our coordination with, it would be with US Army Corps of Engineers.

Marc Mullen:

I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out. What do you do when you know the local population and the local responders are completely overwhelmed? How do you find relief for them? And to do that you need to know what structure is there and where else you can draw from.

Michael Brogan:

I can only really speak to the EPA mission, right, but like we deployed at one point, I think, in terms of actual EPA personnel, because, though, like our hazardous material removal teams, they were made up of maybe one EPA person on that team, along with one or two locals, contractors, along with a cultural monitor on each one of those teams, because, you know, we had divided Lahaina into parcels and so you know, as you would imagine, grids, right, and you had to go grid by grid by grid, and this went on for months and months and months and months, um, and that that overarching mission lasted, you know, three, four months for that, and then we shifted to that mission wrapped up, and now we're still, we're still in Lahaina, but we're doing a water mission, you know, and that and that's getting set to wrap up, but that's, that's a different mission, but it's still under U S army core of engineers, you know.

Tom Mueller:

Right, right. Yeah, you know, it's an interesting point and we've seen this in other responses. Now, where the response teams need to bring in additional resources, as much as we can, we'll bring in people from our company, our agency focused on hiring locals, as you mentioned. Can you talk to us just a little bit more about that? Was that a directed activity? Did that just happen to come about, and how important was it to use those local people?

Michael Brogan:

Oh, it was well, it was critically important. I can't speak to whether it was directed or my sense is it was not directed. It was something that we knew we wanted to do because the locals have all the knowledge. You know, we were meeting regularly with the elders. You know, the elders are the keepers of all knowledge in Hawaiian culture and so, you know, by meeting with the elders, we know what the local community needs, and one of the needs was employment.

Michael Brogan:

Well, we needed folks to help us conduct our hazardous material recovery missions, and they had a whole slew of contractors that were out of work. So it's like, okay, you know, this is a perfect fit. And then we also needed folks that guide those recovery teams, the hazardous material recovery teams, to inform their work so that it's being carried out in a culturally sensitive and appropriate manner. So that takes more people, local people, you know. So I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the term, but that's a win-win situation, you know. And so, and then also, what was interesting is that those teams they didn't have to, but those teams, our EPA teams, would attend a morning and evening, what's called a pule. It's a Hawaiian tradition and it's a gathering, gathering of people that you know you can think of it as a blessing. They just they gather before the start of the day and they come together and join in spirit and just, you know, I mean, like in the military, we'd think of it as a kind of a roll call, safety briefing or whatever. The first sergeant, but it's not. That's the DOD version, but it's more spiritual than that and then you go out and you do the work for the day and then you come back at the end of the day and you do that gathering again and then you break and you go off and do your thing and then the next work day you do it again, and the next workday you do it again.

Michael Brogan:

Well, that became so popular that even EPA members who weren't on the hazardous material recovery teams we were taking part in it. I went out and took part in it. It was that sense of being one with the locals, just unifying, just letting them know that, yeah, we're not locals, but we're here with you in spirit, we're here to do the mission and we're here with you in spirit. And that really did a lot in establishing that commonality. A public information officer it helped a lot in building that level of trust so that the information that I was trying, that I was trying and our team was trying to communicate to the local population was, you know, it set the groundwork, it set the environment that it was more receptive and, at the end of the day, that's the name of the game from my perspective.

Marc Mullen:

Well, I think you've started to answer my next question, which was, classically, when you show up in the JIC, you determine who are the affected stakeholders, what are their concerns, and then how do you best deliver information to those stakeholders. So it's sounding like that event was one of your core methods of making sure you were in touch with your stakeholders, but how did you reach all the locals when they're scattered far and wide?

Michael Brogan:

Yeah, yeah, great question, you know. So, of course there's the traditional media, right, the radio and TV. That's always in print. That's, you know, print was only reaching a relatively small segment of the local line of population for various reasons by hiring locals. And we also had brought a bunch of locals onto my team, because my team not only was a, you know, not only did I have public information people, but I also had what the EPA calls. We have community engagement specialists who actually go out and they're trained to go out into the community and engage. You know, like, they had set up aid distribution stations in different parts of the greater Lahaina community and we sent teams out there with flyers in different languages and stuff just to educate the public on the different programs and what we're doing. And and so we had hired locals to be part of our community engagement team.

Michael Brogan:

Well, they were, they were, you know, and we were meeting in the morning and in the evening and they were bringing, letting me know that, you know, there's a, there's a lot of information out there, bad information, and they were telling me this. And that's how I knew that there was this information vacuum and I was finding out that, like, a lot of people were getting their information from, like these local social media influencers on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook that you know a lot of, like traditional public information officers don't really think about in the traditional communication package. And so we started thinking, ok, well, we've got to start leveraging this, and so we did. We did some interviews with local social media influencers and it proved to be very helpful in terms of tamping down misinformation, and we also started printing out flyers in like the six major languages that local natives spoke that local natives spoke, you know, and we were printing out flyers that were addressing questions that these people were asking us, that were asking our community engagement folks when they were going out to these, you know, aid distribution areas.

Michael Brogan:

So it was real-time intelligence gathering, incorporating that intelligence and adjusting the communication that we were, you know, that we were then distributing. So it was, it was a very short information loop that was adjusting and it just it. It really yielded amazing results, you know, and, like I said, the traditional communication was still part of it, but it was not. We did not rely on that solely, and I think that that was a very smart way to do it, and I well, I know for a fact, because I had. I had so many folks that would come up and say hey, I read about you on Instagram and like, anytime I got that comment, I was like winning yeah.

Tom Mueller:

And you mentioned traditional radio. How impactful was radio as a distribution channel in that environment? Because you know, I'm thinking electricity was probably a challenge in many places with infrastructure burned out. How'd that look?

Michael Brogan:

Yeah, so, yeah, so, um. So with radio, it wasn't radio news that, uh, we found to be effective for us If we did ad buys on um and and and. Lucky for us if we did ad buys on um and and, lucky for us. And it. It says something about the radio landscape, but like one company owns like nine radio stations on the island. So, like you could do one ad buy and I, like I'd write one script and then it would just be blanketed on all the radio stations and all all the. They provide you all the analytics. So I know, and I, I, I could drive anywhere on the island and, you know, scan the stations, I'd be hearing the ad.

Michael Brogan:

Um, so that was effective in terms of because a certain percentage of folks who are listening to radio, you know, the population of Lahaina what ended up happening was a certain percentage relocated locally and those were the workers of the hotels, because the hotels, actually, because they needed them, so they put them up in their hotels, you know, and that, by the way, that was heartbreaking to see a family of five or six living out of a hotel room. You can imagine. Then another certain percentage of Lahaina residents relocated across the island to other family members. So we were hitting those with the radio ads as well. So we were hitting the folks that had relocated to the hotels they worked at, the other folks who had relocated around the island.

Michael Brogan:

We were also getting them with the radio ads. And then another percentage of the population had either relocated to the other islands or back to the mainland right, so we weren't really reaching them. We were more focused on getting the folks that were still on Maui proper. But you know, so that was the radio piece and then TV. We didn't do any ad production or ad buys at all. That was more just news, the traditional, you know, response to media inquiry and stuff of the news inquiry and stuff of the news.

Tom Mueller:

Michael, as we wrap this up now, if you had to sort of capture the top two or three lessons learned from your experiences there, that you know maybe younger responders coming up the ranks who may have to deal with an overwhelming situation like that at some point, what are those top couple of lessons that you'd share with those folks?

Michael Brogan:

at some point. What are those top couple of lessons that you'd share with those folks? First, check your ego at the door. You know and I say that as a man well into my middle age- but ego has no place in a chick, yeah, yeah.

Tom Mueller:

So, number one, check your ego. And it is so hard to work around an ego in that space and it makes everything awkward.

Michael Brogan:

It does. It's your worst enemy and it's it's a a functioning jicks worst enemy. So yeah, check your ego at the door. Uh, two, be a good team player and bring your a game, because everybody else is going to be bringing their A game. So be a good team player. And then three, I think most importantly and this gets back to understanding your role as a PIO or a PAO, whatever terminology you want to use and that is, you know, don't be afraid to speak truth to power. That's what you're there for, that's what you get paid to do. You know whoever that, that, that unified commander is, or that incident commander is. You're there to provide your best advice in the communication space, and it may not always be the popular advice, but by gosh, you've got to speak it, you know. And if it gets you in hot water, so be it, but that's what you're getting paid for. So, yeah, be a good team player, check your ego and speak your truth. That would be my advice.

Tom Mueller:

Michael, thank you so much for taking some time to visit with us on. You know what's clearly an emotional. This was for the people who were impacted by it and for the responders who participated in there. I certainly felt that and I want to just thank you for sharing that and those lessons learned with us on the podcast today.

Michael Brogan:

Well, Tom and Mark, it's been a pleasure and I really appreciate the opportunity to share a little bit of my story.

Marc Mullen:

Really appreciate it. Thank you. Just one quick note if anybody listening is interested in knowing more about the ongoing response, there's a website called civilbeat. org. If you go to that and then click on Maui wildfires, they're just a great resource of information about how much remains to be done.

Tom Mueller:

That's going to do it for this episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast. Thanks for joining us today and if you like what you're hearing, then please like and subscribe to the podcast and please tell your friends and colleagues about us as well. But we'll see you again soon on another episode of the Leading in a Crisis podcast.

People on this episode