Inside the Zombie Apocalypse

Somewhere in Cleveland, Ohio 4 days after Hurricane Sandy hits Northeast Ohio - You can smell the stale coffee in the air, the coffee machine has been running continuously since Monday morning. Public Information Officers (PIO) from various agencies are huddled over their laptops, fingers curled on the keys punching out messages for the general public. Cleveland Public Power is working on a piece about downed power lines. The mayor's office is monitoring their social media feeds. The Department of Public Safety is on the phone with the Fire Chief getting a report on what they are seeing. They are all collaborating together keep the message consistent. It is about quality, and volume. 5 voices are better than 1. This is all happening in real time at the Joint Information Center (JIC). These are the PR people of public service. Their job is to get information to all forms of media.

Press releases are sent to traditional media outlets, PIOs are engaging followers on twitter to monitor and disseminate information to those who are tuned in on social media. All of this is just one cog in the machine of public information. It gets bigger. 

Down the hall lined with photos of SWAT equipment is an even bigger room. Huge projection monitors are at the head of the room. One has an internal program to share information across agencies, the other the local news. On the left wall is another local newscast, on the right wall, CNN. This room is nearly empty except for a member of the Red Cross working her phone and checking in  on the various shelters scattered across the region. 

There is still a lot of work to be done, but everyone's left for a short few hours to take a shower at home, kiss their husbands and wives, and then will head back and continue to monitor the situations across the city. Where are power crews needed? Do we need to shift assets to a certain part of the city for security? What new crisis has come up that need to be dealt with?

When you are watching the news and you hear them say, "Officials say..." this is the room where all those "officials" craft what we are hearing, seeing, and even feeling. If there is a situation, they are on it and trying to solve what ever problem has come up. 

These are the silent partners of our safety. These are the unsung heroes that work late into the night working together to solve problems to help the boots on the ground. No one is in the EOC and working the JIC unless they can get things done. They are all decision makers, policy makers, and doers. The power outage on W 54th and the power outage on E 72nd, only enough crews to fix one, this is where the hard choices are made.