BP Deals With Pipeline Rupture in Alaska

Do you remember the Exxon Valdez? Why? Because of the slow and inadequate response of Exxon, whose strategy was to play the blame game.

Fast-forward to 2009 and a BP oil pipeline that ruptured on the north slope of Alaska. Due to an ice plug that caused a large crack in the line, 46,000 gallons of oil and water spilled onto the snowy ground. This isn't nearly the size of the Valdez spill, but the Anchorage Daily News is calling this one of the worst spills ever on the North Slope. (www.adn.com/money/industries/oil/prudhoe/story/1046914.html) The worst? A 200,000-gallon spill in 2006 from a corroded line owned by none other than BP. That led to a criminal misdemeanor conviction, $20 million in fines and restitution, and a three-year probation, under which the company still operates.

All this sounds like a reason for BP to be on its best behavior in responding to this latest crisis. It appears that is the case. Spokesperson Steve Rinehart has been up-front in providing information on the cause of the spill, the company's efforts to clean up the mess, and how it hopes to prevent ice plugs from forming, building pressure, and causing pipeline ruptures. The company appears to be cooperating fully with the federal EPA and state environmental officials. Crews are using a variety of innovative cleanup methods to return the land to a pristine condition.

BP probably will be fined again, and the probationary period may be extended. But it appears the company is doing all it can to avoid more severe penalties and to be transparent to government agencies, Alaskans, and environmentalists. Chances are we won't connect BP with this spill the way we connect Exxon with the Valdez disaster.

Explosion Could Lead to Expensive Aftershocks

An explosion at an American Acryl plant in Pasadena, Texas, Wednesday injured two employees, forced a shelter-in-place order, and sent black smoke into the air that could be seen for miles and hours. I can't tell how well American Acryl is communicating. Its web site says, "Our site is currently offline while we make improvements to better serve you. In the mean time, (sic) call us!"

Hmmm. Have you ever heard of a web site that needs to be taken offline to be updated? Don't you leave the old site up until the new site is ready to go live?

But here is the main point of this post. Google "American Acryl." At the top of the list you'll see a sponsored link that reads, "Hurt in a plant accident? Free case review." And it gives a web address and phone number for a law firm. The buzzards fly very fast these days. I hope for American Acryl's sake that the company is showing care and compassion for the injured employees and their families and communicating effectively with other employees and neighbors. There are no guarantees, but I like my chances better when I treat stakeholders with dignity and respect, before, during, and after a crisis. I worked for a company that forced the evacuation of a school and sent 10 community people to the hospital as a result of a chemical spill. I'm convinced that it was our community relations efforts and bank account of good will that allowed us to avoid a single legal suit. We will see if American Acryl is that lucky.

Illinois Explosion Kills Civillian a Quarter Mile Away.

Investigators are on their way to a synthetic crystals plant in Belvidere, Illinois. An explosion at the facility Tuesday blew three walls off the building - which was what was supposed to happen -- but the blast was so powerful that debris struck and killed a truck driver at an I-90 oasis a quarter of a mile away. The company is NKD America, a Japanese-owned corporation whose only other American plant is in Massachusetts.

The Japanse tend handle crises such as this differently than the Institute for Crisis Management recommends: They don't. The management in Belvidere and in Massachusetts should know better but may be stifled by corporate. I've searched through news articles and TV footage to find out the company's response. All I can find -- about 24 hours after the explosion -- was confirmation from a sales manager in Webser, Massachusetts, that no employees were injured. There's no show of sympathy for the victim's family, no message that I know of to neighbors whose houses were shaken up, no reassurance that the company will cooperate fully with investigators, no commitment to find the cause and rebuild with safely designed changes. It doesn't even have a web site. (When you Google NKD you just get a lot of sites with the word NAKED.) I am curious to know what NKD is telling its 20 employees who were on site when the building blew, whether counselors are offered, how or if the company will compensate them while the plant is closed, and what plans are there to communicate with families who may not want the spouse or Mom or Dad to return to work at that dangerous place.

It's all so simple, but it can become so complicated when there's no plan and your employees are scurrying for their lives. This company could have been able to return to business as usual sooner if only it had a crisis plan and followed it. I can name several companies, and you probably can too, who no longer are in business because they failed to manage communications with key stakeholders following a crisis.

I hope your plan consists of more than keeping fingers crossed and hoping nothing bad will happen to your organization. If not, yours may be the next NKD. Plan for the worst, then practice regularly.

Kentucky Court of Appeals Rules Against McDonald's in Strip Search Case

This is a reminder about the importance of internal communications and how, failing to communicate, can lead to crises and loss of revenue. I wrote here on October 15, 2007, about the bizarre crisis of Louise Ogborn . She was the victim of a phone hoax that led to her being strip searched at her workplace, a McDonald's in Mount Washington, Kentucky. A caller, claiming to be a police officer, ordered assistant manager Donna Summers to strip search Ogborn because she was believed to have stolen a purse. Summer's fiance was later called in to assist and sexually abused Ogborn. He is serving five years in prison.

The Kentucky Court of Appeals last month upheld the $6.1 million award to Ogborn, saying that the McDonald's Legal Department was aware of other such hoax calls to its restaurants. (www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009911200397) The unanimous decision called McDonald's behavior "reprehensible" and said the $5 million awarded to Ogborn for punitive damages was justified because the company repeatedly "placed a higher value on corporate reputation than on the safety of its own employees." McDonald's allegedly knew about the hoax calls for 10 years.

Even the most respected companies like McDonald's are susceptible to smoldering crises. If Legal and Communications had met to discuss the hoax calls and decide on an appropriate response, Ogborn could have been spared the humiliation and McDonald's could have been spared the $6 million plus legal fees and time spent. That is, assuming such a discussion never took place. And assuming if it did, all involved would have made the right decision to warn employees about the hoax. Either way, McDs did nothing for 10 years and left itself embarrassed and lost many millions of dollars.

We need to create cultures and processes in our organizations to prevent smoldering crises from becoming actual crises. The culture needs to be one in which employees at all levels feel free to bring concerns to the attention of managers without fear of retribution. And the organization needs processes in place that make communications people aware of smoldering crises. For example, I used to create a monthly issues report to distribute to management. It detailed incidents at competitor facilities, possible legislation, and industry trends. Larry Smith, president of the Institute for Crisis Management, used to make the rounds weekly among leadership when he led communications for county government. He talked about the game Saturday, how the kids were doing in school, and oh yeah, anything going on in your department I should know about?

Solid internal communications probably would have prevented the Mount Washington hoax. Make sure no one is sitting on key information that could lead to an embarrassing and expensive crisis.

Pandemic Flu Threat Is Not Over

Whew! The H1N1 flu pandemic seems to be winding down. It mostly affected kids and those with pre-existing conditions, which didn't affect our workforces. Have you shelved your pandemic plan, if you even had one?

Alan Sipress, in a Washington Post article, would tell you to remain vigilant (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/13/AR2009/1111302213.html). He writes, "But we haven't seen how bad things might get yet."

"What's the worst-case scenario? It could be a continuing vaccine shortage. It might be a mutation in the swine flu virus that suddenly makes the strain resistant to Tamiflu, as some seasonal strains already are. Or it could be that hospital ICUs become so overwhelmed that people who could have been saved die."

Flu specialists say the worst case would be if the swine flu exchanged genetic material with another deadlier flu strain, creating a new contagious virus more severe than the one circulating now. Sipress points out that bird flu in Asia, which I have blogged about many times, already exists. It has killed more than half the people who have contracted it and resembles the 1918 pandemic that killed 50 million people.

Now is not the time to let your guard down. If you have a pandemic plan, keep it updated and be sure your key employees are familiar with it. If you don't have a pandemic plan -- Where have you been?