March 12, 2025 • 22 mins
Join us for an engaging conversation with Katy O'Hara, a seasoned public information officer and firefighter, who shares her formidable experiences in crisis communications. With a background in both wildland firefighting and military service, Katie provides unique insights into the challenges faced in high-pressure situations. From her deployment in Afghanistan to her work on the Hermits Peak Fire, Katie opens up about the delicate balance between media demands and ethical responsibilities.
Discover the intense lessons learned while managing public relations in real emergencies, where every word has significance and can impact lives. She recounts the intricacies of navigating media pressures while ensuring the families of affected individuals are notified properly, highlighting the difficult choices encountered along the way.
Find Katy at www.control-line.co
We'd love to hear from you. Email the show at Tom@leadinginacrisis.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Tom Mueller (00:07):
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
I'm Tom Mueller.
With me again my co-host, MarcMullen, and on our episode today
we are continuing ourconversation with Katy O'Hara.
Katy is a frontline firefighterand public information officer
and also a Naval Reserve officer.
(00:27):
On our episode today she'sgoing to share some stories with
us from her deployment toAfghanistan as a public
information officer.
Let's join that conversationnow.
Hey, I wonder if we can shiftgears and talk about your Navy
Reserve work.
You have told me in the pastthat you deployed to Afghanistan
(00:51):
in support of joint operationsthere and I wonder if you have
any particular stories you couldshare around your experience
there dealing with media or justdealing with the incidents that
you're working real time.
Katy O'Hara (01:09):
Absolutely so.
I had the distinct honor todeploy as a Navy reservist to
Afghanistan in 2017 in supportof the NATO Resolute Support
Mission based out of Kabul there, and my role was specifically
(01:30):
the crisis communications aspectof it.
Our esteemed colleague, captainBill Salvin, was my commanding
officer while we were there.
Tom Mueller (01:41):
Bless your heart.
Katy O'Hara (01:42):
Yeah, I have so many more stories that are not
related to communications, butdifferent podcasts, right, uh,
so he did a really good job of,when folks came in the door, of
like taking a look at what do wedo in our day job.
That's to me, one of thecoolest things about being a
(02:04):
reservist is that I get to bringmy skill set that I've honed as
a civilian and, in this case, apublic information officer
working in wildland fire,working in large-scale incidents
, and figure out where thatbenefits the mission that we're
deployed to support, right, andso in this case, it was sort of
(02:26):
a combination of supportingcrisis communications and taking
a look at how we wereleveraging social media to
support that.
Nato mission 2017 perspectivewise.
Just generally speaking,america didn't have a whole lot
of interest, you know, from alarge media base, on what was
(02:48):
happening continuously there.
Right, everybody knew we stillhad service members there, but
it wasn't the constant drumbeatthat it was like in 2010.
And so it was.
It was a pretty big challenge toto figure out how do we talk to
the media, how do we make surepeople are aware of what's
happening and still interested,and the story that comes to my
(03:11):
mind that I know we've talkedabout in the past is there was
one incident that really drovehome the need to really anchor
into what is good publicinformation, public affairs,
from the perspective of holdingyour line and knowing when you
(03:31):
can talk and when you can't talk.
So I think it was about June,july, timeframe of 2017, we had
a pretty large incident thatoccurred.
A pretty large incident thatoccurred.
An adversary I think it was anISIS event had attacked some of
(03:58):
our special forces operators andwe had had a number of injuries
and killed in action.
Of events during this timeframe, tragic, awful to have to deal
with.
It was probably about 11o'clock midnight our time in
Kabul when we got thenotifications and my role was to
be the one that came in andstarted putting together those
basic we're aware something hashappened sort of responses to
(04:19):
start getting out to the mediaso that we could kind of hedge
our bets a little bit on whatwas going to come about.
It was, I want to say, it's aneight and a half hour time
difference, give or take, fromthe East Coast.
Tom Mueller (04:35):
So it would have been morning news cycle hours
here in the US.
Katy O'Hara (04:39):
Correct right when it was starting to go, and our
biggest challenge that we raninto is that, in this case, our
adversary posted some extremelyaccurate accounts of the
incident on their social mediaand policies and things that we
(05:07):
have to follow as US servicemembers, as NATO service members
, and then, knowing that ouradversary is posting images,
details and stuff that are justreally not things that we want
to endorse or get behind at thatmoment, and so my job was- Well
, katie, let me just ask youyou've got issues like family
(05:28):
notifications that have tohappen in that situation, right?
Tom Mueller (05:32):
So you're really your hands are tied in terms of
being able to communicate muchabout what's happening, then
right 100%, and that was sort ofthat.
Katy O'Hara (05:42):
Next piece is that, as we start posting these
initial statements of like heyguys, we're we're aware that
there has been an incident inthis part of the country.
We're working to gather moreinformation.
We started getting phone callsfrom, you know, pentagon
correspondents, the normal right, like you said.
It's the morning news cycle andthey're wanting to get out
(06:04):
ahead of maybe getting somethingfor the noon or the evening
cycles, and it's two, threeo'clock in the morning by this
point.
And I am the lone rangersitting in the office there and
getting to take these phonecalls and having to hold that
line of I know, I know names, Iknow that these people have
(06:26):
families and that it's going totake some time for the
information to get back to thePentagon and then out to the
appropriate resources to contactall of these family members,
and so having to sit and andrepeatedly answer the same
question of like yeah, but comeon, katie, you know that there's
(06:50):
more that you can tell me.
I just need you to give me alittle bit Right.
And these reporters are justpulling, trying to pull all
those strings.
It was one of the biggestlessons that I've ever learned
in terms of just hold that line.
I don't want to be responsiblefor a family member finding out
(07:11):
that their loved one passed awaybefore the military officially
notified them in a dignifiedmanner, right With the resources
, a chaplain question or answersto questions that they might
have in that time frame.
And so it was about 36 hours ofanswering the phone about every
(07:33):
20 minutes from differentreporters.
In this case there was oneparticular reporter who had, I
swear, a timer set and wouldcall me every 20 minutes for 36
hours.
Tom Mueller (07:49):
So that reporter was obviously frustrated, but
not making your job easy, and itwas.
It was an emotional kind ofincident anyway, right?
Katy O'Hara (08:01):
Absolutely Well and just.
I mean you've got to thinkabout those people's families.
You don't ever want to be inthe situation where you're the
one accidentally lettingsomebody know ahead of time
Emotional, because people aretired and we know that the
(08:21):
adversary in this case hasposted all of this information
on social media and I can't Ican't retract that.
I can't do anything with thatother than continue to reinforce
that.
We know something has happened.
We're doing what we can from ourside and we'll share more
information when we can, and itjust, you know, hold that line
(08:42):
and I tell that story frequently, especially to new information
officers, as they're learning,as they're training, because it
was an, it was an extreme case,right, of where you're just
getting badgered Because thesereporters that are calling you
are also the people that you,you watch on the news every
night.
Right, it's not little names,it's not their producer, it's
(09:03):
not their intern that's callingand asking for this.
It's big names, popular people,and it would be very easy to
give in to that pressure andjust give them an answer and
give them the scoop and be cool.
But I don't want to be that guy.
Marc Mullen (09:24):
Is that a time?
And this question if you hadprepared because what you're
really talking about is you havea different process you have to
follow.
You don't get to just throwpictures of people up on social
media Did you share the process?
I mean, I'm surprised thatafter all the wars we've been in
with media questions, theydon't understand.
(09:44):
There's a process you have tofollow, but do you take that and
reinforce it every chance youget, or do you just have to live
?
Katy O'Hara (09:52):
Every conversation was a reinforcement of the
policy and I think probably thefrustrating thing for me is they
know it, they know the policyand they're hoping.
In this case, it very much feltlike they were hoping to catch
somebody not following thepolicy right.
Marc Mullen (10:11):
They're hoping you'd break.
Katy O'Hara (10:13):
Yep, which is which is disappointing, given that
there are real people involved,that they're real humans and
their emotions and thosefamilies deserve better than
that.
But that's the frustrating part.
But understanding the policy, Ithink if you bring it back to
(10:36):
as a PIO or as a public affairsofficer in the military, in
wildland fire, whatever areawe're representing understanding
what those policies are so thatyou can follow them and then be
able to teach people why you'redoing that.
Marc Mullen (10:53):
In our world we deal with that sometimes too.
I was at one actual spill wherenobody was supposed to release
the spill amount because untilyou confirm it you're just going
to be wrong.
And then somebody did and Iremember at the time thinking,
feeling betrayed and feelinglike the plans had been broken
by this one person.
(11:13):
But that was over a little bitof oil.
That wasn't a human life or afamily.
So the stakes are so muchhigher and the emotions must be
so much higher as well.
Tom Mueller (11:24):
Yeah, that's a very extreme example, katy, that you
had to go through there.
We did some media training witha large client last week and
had a really obnoxious reportersitting across from one of their
younger staff and justhammering them with the same
questions and, you know, blessher heart, she held the line,
(11:46):
but you could just see theperspiration and stuff going on
holding the line and trying todo that.
So good to you for hanging onand doing that and thank you
from all of us, katy, for yourservice.
And shout out to Bill Salvintoo, too, for keeping you in
line, keeping you safe,hopefully, while you were there.
(12:09):
Okay, guys, it's been awonderful conversation.
We're kind of blowing throughour timeline here, katie.
Any other stories that come tomind around the Fireline or
others that you'd like to sharewith the audience while we're
here?
Katy O'Hara (12:30):
Yeah, I think there's a really good one to
share that kind of offsets.
You opened with talking aboutthe challenges of Palisades.
You know, large, largecommunity, very populated, lots
of media assets, lots oftechnology and connect and
connectivity and I've got a goodstory that sort of mirrors that
(12:53):
.
But on the the side, wherethere there wasn't a large
population, there was a largelandmass and a lot of private
property and a lot of people,but not the same draw as you get
in Southern California, right.
And so back in 2022, earlyApril timeframe, there was a
(13:18):
Hermits Peak Calf Canyonincident in New Mexico, northern
New Mexico, mexico, northernNew Mexico and this was my first
interaction with that NOAAdesignation of PDS.
The particularly dangeroussituation, which is what that we
saw during Palisades, right,and that was going around the
media pretty heavily of this, isthe big wind event and guys you
(13:41):
need to keep your head out andthis is NOAA trying to flag for
all of the responders thatsomething is abnormal here,
right, the red flag warnings andall of that.
So it was probably day seven oreight on Hermits Peak At this
point in time.
It was just the Hermits Peakfire and our NOAA weather
(14:04):
service incident meteorologist,because we actually have
meteorologists that come inspecifically for fires dropped
into the office and was like,hey guys, this is not going to
be good.
We have a weather event comingthat is nothing that we've ever
seen here, like we've beenactually trying to recalibrate
our equipment because we thoughtsomething was wrong and we just
(14:27):
keep getting the same modelsand it's, it's dangerous, it's
extremely dangerous, and she wasusing words like catastrophic
and you know things that wehaven't seen.
And they were predicting 90 toa hundred mile an hour winds in
Northern New Mexico, landlockedNorthern New Mexico.
Tom Mueller (14:47):
Wow, that got your attention.
Katy O'Hara (14:49):
Yeah, and so you know, you get those those tingly
spider senses, especially as aPIO right, like, oh, this is,
this is not good.
And we had been.
We'd had some good luck withour, our interactions with the
public.
It was very, very dispersed,small communities across this
area.
We were based in Las Vegas, newMexico, which find it on the
(15:14):
map, about an hour north ofSanta Fe, and so small
communities, and we had had somegood luck just with the low
tech sending an informationofficer out with some handouts
and having personalconversations with folks at the
feed store strategy, because atthis point the fire was about
(15:45):
7,000 acres and about 90%contained.
So we're like, we're makinglike, honestly.
I had my tickets booked to gohome, my kid was playing in a
soccer tournament that weekendand I was ready to, you know,
pull the cord and I was packingmy bags and heading home and and
we started getting thisinformation from the
(16:05):
meteorologist and I went and satdown with my incident commander
and I was like man, something,something doesn't feel right.
You know, my, my gut is tellingme that something is not not
tracking with this whole thingand let's, let's talk through it
, because I think we need tohave a plan for if, if this
weather does show up, what arewe going to tell the community?
(16:27):
What do we need to tell themahead of time?
We don't need to be reactive onthis, because we've got the
modeling and the informationahead of time.
And so we we talked through it.
We talked through it with ouroperations folks, we talked
through it with our.
We have fire behavior analystswho do modeling and can see
three or four days out If we getthis X wind on the fire.
(16:47):
We can do this.
Well, within a couple of hoursof those conversations, we had a
new fire that started just tothe north of us, which ended up
being named Calf Canyon Fire,canyon fire.
And when we started putting themodeling and the winds with
that fire and putting themtogether, the modeling
(17:13):
technology wasn't big enough,like the map, literally wasn't
big enough to show how far thefire was going to run and alarm
bells going off, right.
And now we're like,operationally, we got to figure
out what we're going to do withour resources.
We've 100 mile winds, 100 milean hour winds coming in.
We can't use aviation in thatsituation.
So what are we going to do andhow are we going to tell the
(17:34):
public this is coming right.
And so we start putting outlittle notices on social media.
Hey, everybody, we need you topay attention.
We've got this weather coming.
We're doing all this littlestuff that we're used to doing
and then and then the noticesstart getting worse.
Like this fire is not going togo well for us.
(17:56):
We're now talking, we'repulling all of our firefighting
resources off the line and backto our incident command post out
of safety for our firefighters,and now we need to start
telling the community that youneed to evacuate.
So we're working with thecounty sheriff.
We're trying to get thesemessages out.
The challenge is we could notget a local radio station or any
(18:21):
of the major TV news stationsin the state of New Mexico to
answer a phone call or put us onTV or on the radio.
Could not get them.
They did not think it wasenough of an emergency to get us
on TV or on the radio.
We ended up doing like a livesocial media broadcast just on
(18:44):
our like incident page, where myincident commander literally
stood up and said if you don'tleave now, we will not be there
to help you.
We cannot come save you.
We will not come save you thelife of our firefighters.
Safety of our firefighterscomes first.
We need you to get out and I'venot in five years, never seen
(19:06):
him do that.
And we couldn't get the newslike traditional news, to pick
it up, they didn't.
Tom Mueller (19:13):
You were probably in a remote location right and
not huge population centersnearby, so just didn't sort of
rise to the level.
So did your team end up buggingout of there then for your own
safety?
Katy O'Hara (19:27):
So our location we were actually our command post
was at a community college thatwas up on a hill and so we were
in sort of a protected area.
That fire ran 15 miles in threehours.
Wow, 15 miles in three hours.
We were incredibly fortunate,and there were hundreds of homes
(19:50):
destroyed and gone.
You can actually they're stillin an active recovery process
because it's also an incrediblylow income part of the state.
Luckily, no civilian casualties, no firefighter casualties.
Everybody was able to.
We were able to get enough of aword out to the smaller
(20:13):
populations and just word ofmouth and, honestly, just the
sheriff's department drivingevery street he possibly could
with a bullhorn telling peopleto get out.
But I don't think it's.
It was just a very frustratingfrom a from a public information
standpoint to not have not havethe media take us seriously,
(20:38):
you know, and in and take thatin contrast to Palisades, right,
if we're going to sort of lookat a compare and contrast.
It was the same situation.
It was an extreme fire behaviorwith very long runs of fire
impacting communities, but theyweren't overly populated
communities and so the newsdidn't pick it up.
Tom Mueller (21:00):
It was a one of the challenges that we face, you
know, out there, especially inthe current climate, where
health and safety are at risk orcan be at risk very quickly
(21:24):
based on the turn of the weather, turn of the fire, whatever it
is.
So those are very challengingtimes, okay, well, guys, I think
we're going to wrap up here.
Katie, I want to thank you forjoining us and for sharing some
of your stories with that.
We really appreciate you comingout and best of luck with
Control Line Communications.
(21:46):
We look for big things from you.
And thanks again for yourmilitary service as well.
Thanks, kenny.
Katy O'Hara (21:56):
Thanks Mark, thanks Tom.
Tom Mueller (21:58):
And that's going to do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis podcast.
Thanks again for joining us andwe'll see you soon for another
episode.
Hi everyone and welcome back to the Leading in a
Crisis podcast.
I'm Tom Mueller.
With me again my co-host, MarcMullen, and on our episode today
we are continuing ourconversation with Katy O'Hara.
Katy is a frontline firefighterand public information officer
and also a Naval Reserve officer.
(00:27):
On our episode today she'sgoing to share some stories with
us from her deployment toAfghanistan as a public
information officer.
Let's join that conversationnow.
Hey, I wonder if we can shiftgears and talk about your Navy
Reserve work.
You have told me in the pastthat you deployed to Afghanistan
(00:51):
in support of joint operationsthere and I wonder if you have
any particular stories you couldshare around your experience
there dealing with media or justdealing with the incidents that
you're working real time.
Katy O'Hara (01:09):
Absolutely so.
I had the distinct honor todeploy as a Navy reservist to
Afghanistan in 2017 in supportof the NATO Resolute Support
Mission based out of Kabul there, and my role was specifically
(01:30):
the crisis communications aspectof it.
Our esteemed colleague, captainBill Salvin, was my commanding
officer while we were there.
Tom Mueller (01:41):
Bless your heart.
Katy O'Hara (01:42):
Yeah, I have so many more stories that are not
related to communications, butdifferent podcasts, right, uh,
so he did a really good job of,when folks came in the door, of
like taking a look at what do wedo in our day job.
That's to me, one of thecoolest things about being a
(02:04):
reservist is that I get to bringmy skill set that I've honed as
a civilian and, in this case, apublic information officer
working in wildland fire,working in large-scale incidents
, and figure out where thatbenefits the mission that we're
deployed to support, right, andso in this case, it was sort of
(02:26):
a combination of supportingcrisis communications and taking
a look at how we wereleveraging social media to
support that.
Nato mission 2017 perspectivewise.
Just generally speaking,america didn't have a whole lot
of interest, you know, from alarge media base, on what was
(02:48):
happening continuously there.
Right, everybody knew we stillhad service members there, but
it wasn't the constant drumbeatthat it was like in 2010.
And so it was.
It was a pretty big challenge toto figure out how do we talk to
the media, how do we make surepeople are aware of what's
happening and still interested,and the story that comes to my
(03:11):
mind that I know we've talkedabout in the past is there was
one incident that really drovehome the need to really anchor
into what is good publicinformation, public affairs,
from the perspective of holdingyour line and knowing when you
(03:31):
can talk and when you can't talk.
So I think it was about June,july, timeframe of 2017, we had
a pretty large incident thatoccurred.
A pretty large incident thatoccurred.
An adversary I think it was anISIS event had attacked some of
(03:58):
our special forces operators andwe had had a number of injuries
and killed in action.
Of events during this timeframe, tragic, awful to have to deal
with.
It was probably about 11o'clock midnight our time in
Kabul when we got thenotifications and my role was to
be the one that came in andstarted putting together those
basic we're aware something hashappened sort of responses to
(04:19):
start getting out to the mediaso that we could kind of hedge
our bets a little bit on whatwas going to come about.
It was, I want to say, it's aneight and a half hour time
difference, give or take, fromthe East Coast.
Tom Mueller (04:35):
So it would have been morning news cycle hours
here in the US.
Katy O'Hara (04:39):
Correct right when it was starting to go, and our
biggest challenge that we raninto is that, in this case, our
adversary posted some extremelyaccurate accounts of the
incident on their social mediaand policies and things that we
(05:07):
have to follow as US servicemembers, as NATO service members
, and then, knowing that ouradversary is posting images,
details and stuff that are justreally not things that we want
to endorse or get behind at thatmoment, and so my job was- Well
, katie, let me just ask youyou've got issues like family
(05:28):
notifications that have tohappen in that situation, right?
Tom Mueller (05:32):
So you're really your hands are tied in terms of
being able to communicate muchabout what's happening, then
right 100%, and that was sort ofthat.
Katy O'Hara (05:42):
Next piece is that, as we start posting these
initial statements of like heyguys, we're we're aware that
there has been an incident inthis part of the country.
We're working to gather moreinformation.
We started getting phone callsfrom, you know, pentagon
correspondents, the normal right, like you said.
It's the morning news cycle andthey're wanting to get out
(06:04):
ahead of maybe getting somethingfor the noon or the evening
cycles, and it's two, threeo'clock in the morning by this
point.
And I am the lone rangersitting in the office there and
getting to take these phonecalls and having to hold that
line of I know, I know names, Iknow that these people have
(06:26):
families and that it's going totake some time for the
information to get back to thePentagon and then out to the
appropriate resources to contactall of these family members,
and so having to sit and andrepeatedly answer the same
question of like yeah, but comeon, katie, you know that there's
(06:50):
more that you can tell me.
I just need you to give me alittle bit Right.
And these reporters are justpulling, trying to pull all
those strings.
It was one of the biggestlessons that I've ever learned
in terms of just hold that line.
I don't want to be responsiblefor a family member finding out
(07:11):
that their loved one passed awaybefore the military officially
notified them in a dignifiedmanner, right With the resources
, a chaplain question or answersto questions that they might
have in that time frame.
And so it was about 36 hours ofanswering the phone about every
(07:33):
20 minutes from differentreporters.
In this case there was oneparticular reporter who had, I
swear, a timer set and wouldcall me every 20 minutes for 36
hours.
Tom Mueller (07:49):
So that reporter was obviously frustrated, but
not making your job easy, and itwas.
It was an emotional kind ofincident anyway, right?
Katy O'Hara (08:01):
Absolutely Well and just.
I mean you've got to thinkabout those people's families.
You don't ever want to be inthe situation where you're the
one accidentally lettingsomebody know ahead of time
Emotional, because people aretired and we know that the
(08:21):
adversary in this case hasposted all of this information
on social media and I can't Ican't retract that.
I can't do anything with thatother than continue to reinforce
that.
We know something has happened.
We're doing what we can from ourside and we'll share more
information when we can, and itjust, you know, hold that line
(08:42):
and I tell that story frequently, especially to new information
officers, as they're learning,as they're training, because it
was an, it was an extreme case,right, of where you're just
getting badgered Because thesereporters that are calling you
are also the people that you,you watch on the news every
night.
Right, it's not little names,it's not their producer, it's
(09:03):
not their intern that's callingand asking for this.
It's big names, popular people,and it would be very easy to
give in to that pressure andjust give them an answer and
give them the scoop and be cool.
But I don't want to be that guy.
Marc Mullen (09:24):
Is that a time?
And this question if you hadprepared because what you're
really talking about is you havea different process you have to
follow.
You don't get to just throwpictures of people up on social
media Did you share the process?
I mean, I'm surprised thatafter all the wars we've been in
with media questions, theydon't understand.
(09:44):
There's a process you have tofollow, but do you take that and
reinforce it every chance youget, or do you just have to live
?
Katy O'Hara (09:52):
Every conversation was a reinforcement of the
policy and I think probably thefrustrating thing for me is they
know it, they know the policyand they're hoping.
In this case, it very much feltlike they were hoping to catch
somebody not following thepolicy right.
Marc Mullen (10:11):
They're hoping you'd break.
Katy O'Hara (10:13):
Yep, which is which is disappointing, given that
there are real people involved,that they're real humans and
their emotions and thosefamilies deserve better than
that.
But that's the frustrating part.
But understanding the policy, Ithink if you bring it back to
(10:36):
as a PIO or as a public affairsofficer in the military, in
wildland fire, whatever areawe're representing understanding
what those policies are so thatyou can follow them and then be
able to teach people why you'redoing that.
Marc Mullen (10:53):
In our world we deal with that sometimes too.
I was at one actual spill wherenobody was supposed to release
the spill amount because untilyou confirm it you're just going
to be wrong.
And then somebody did and Iremember at the time thinking,
feeling betrayed and feelinglike the plans had been broken
by this one person.
(11:13):
But that was over a little bitof oil.
That wasn't a human life or afamily.
So the stakes are so muchhigher and the emotions must be
so much higher as well.
Tom Mueller (11:24):
Yeah, that's a very extreme example, katy, that you
had to go through there.
We did some media training witha large client last week and
had a really obnoxious reportersitting across from one of their
younger staff and justhammering them with the same
questions and, you know, blessher heart, she held the line,
(11:46):
but you could just see theperspiration and stuff going on
holding the line and trying todo that.
So good to you for hanging onand doing that and thank you
from all of us, katy, for yourservice.
And shout out to Bill Salvintoo, too, for keeping you in
line, keeping you safe,hopefully, while you were there.
(12:09):
Okay, guys, it's been awonderful conversation.
We're kind of blowing throughour timeline here, katie.
Any other stories that come tomind around the Fireline or
others that you'd like to sharewith the audience while we're
here?
Katy O'Hara (12:30):
Yeah, I think there's a really good one to
share that kind of offsets.
You opened with talking aboutthe challenges of Palisades.
You know, large, largecommunity, very populated, lots
of media assets, lots oftechnology and connect and
connectivity and I've got a goodstory that sort of mirrors that
(12:53):
.
But on the the side, wherethere there wasn't a large
population, there was a largelandmass and a lot of private
property and a lot of people,but not the same draw as you get
in Southern California, right.
And so back in 2022, earlyApril timeframe, there was a
(13:18):
Hermits Peak Calf Canyonincident in New Mexico, northern
New Mexico, mexico, northernNew Mexico and this was my first
interaction with that NOAAdesignation of PDS.
The particularly dangeroussituation, which is what that we
saw during Palisades, right,and that was going around the
media pretty heavily of this, isthe big wind event and guys you
(13:41):
need to keep your head out andthis is NOAA trying to flag for
all of the responders thatsomething is abnormal here,
right, the red flag warnings andall of that.
So it was probably day seven oreight on Hermits Peak At this
point in time.
It was just the Hermits Peakfire and our NOAA weather
(14:04):
service incident meteorologist,because we actually have
meteorologists that come inspecifically for fires dropped
into the office and was like,hey guys, this is not going to
be good.
We have a weather event comingthat is nothing that we've ever
seen here, like we've beenactually trying to recalibrate
our equipment because we thoughtsomething was wrong and we just
(14:27):
keep getting the same modelsand it's, it's dangerous, it's
extremely dangerous, and she wasusing words like catastrophic
and you know things that wehaven't seen.
And they were predicting 90 toa hundred mile an hour winds in
Northern New Mexico, landlockedNorthern New Mexico.
Tom Mueller (14:47):
Wow, that got your attention.
Katy O'Hara (14:49):
Yeah, and so you know, you get those those tingly
spider senses, especially as aPIO right, like, oh, this is,
this is not good.
And we had been.
We'd had some good luck withour, our interactions with the
public.
It was very, very dispersed,small communities across this
area.
We were based in Las Vegas, newMexico, which find it on the
(15:14):
map, about an hour north ofSanta Fe, and so small
communities, and we had had somegood luck just with the low
tech sending an informationofficer out with some handouts
and having personalconversations with folks at the
feed store strategy, because atthis point the fire was about
(15:45):
7,000 acres and about 90%contained.
So we're like, we're makinglike, honestly.
I had my tickets booked to gohome, my kid was playing in a
soccer tournament that weekendand I was ready to, you know,
pull the cord and I was packingmy bags and heading home and and
we started getting thisinformation from the
(16:05):
meteorologist and I went and satdown with my incident commander
and I was like man, something,something doesn't feel right.
You know, my, my gut is tellingme that something is not not
tracking with this whole thingand let's, let's talk through it
, because I think we need tohave a plan for if, if this
weather does show up, what arewe going to tell the community?
(16:27):
What do we need to tell themahead of time?
We don't need to be reactive onthis, because we've got the
modeling and the informationahead of time.
And so we we talked through it.
We talked through it with ouroperations folks, we talked
through it with our.
We have fire behavior analystswho do modeling and can see
three or four days out If we getthis X wind on the fire.
(16:47):
We can do this.
Well, within a couple of hoursof those conversations, we had a
new fire that started just tothe north of us, which ended up
being named Calf Canyon Fire,canyon fire.
And when we started putting themodeling and the winds with
that fire and putting themtogether, the modeling
(17:13):
technology wasn't big enough,like the map, literally wasn't
big enough to show how far thefire was going to run and alarm
bells going off, right.
And now we're like,operationally, we got to figure
out what we're going to do withour resources.
We've 100 mile winds, 100 milean hour winds coming in.
We can't use aviation in thatsituation.
So what are we going to do andhow are we going to tell the
(17:34):
public this is coming right.
And so we start putting outlittle notices on social media.
Hey, everybody, we need you topay attention.
We've got this weather coming.
We're doing all this littlestuff that we're used to doing
and then and then the noticesstart getting worse.
Like this fire is not going togo well for us.
(17:56):
We're now talking, we'repulling all of our firefighting
resources off the line and backto our incident command post out
of safety for our firefighters,and now we need to start
telling the community that youneed to evacuate.
So we're working with thecounty sheriff.
We're trying to get thesemessages out.
The challenge is we could notget a local radio station or any
(18:21):
of the major TV news stationsin the state of New Mexico to
answer a phone call or put us onTV or on the radio.
Could not get them.
They did not think it wasenough of an emergency to get us
on TV or on the radio.
We ended up doing like a livesocial media broadcast just on
(18:44):
our like incident page, where myincident commander literally
stood up and said if you don'tleave now, we will not be there
to help you.
We cannot come save you.
We will not come save you thelife of our firefighters.
Safety of our firefighterscomes first.
We need you to get out and I'venot in five years, never seen
(19:06):
him do that.
And we couldn't get the newslike traditional news, to pick
it up, they didn't.
Tom Mueller (19:13):
You were probably in a remote location right and
not huge population centersnearby, so just didn't sort of
rise to the level.
So did your team end up buggingout of there then for your own
safety?
Katy O'Hara (19:27):
So our location we were actually our command post
was at a community college thatwas up on a hill and so we were
in sort of a protected area.
That fire ran 15 miles in threehours.
Wow, 15 miles in three hours.
We were incredibly fortunate,and there were hundreds of homes
(19:50):
destroyed and gone.
You can actually they're stillin an active recovery process
because it's also an incrediblylow income part of the state.
Luckily, no civilian casualties, no firefighter casualties.
Everybody was able to.
We were able to get enough of aword out to the smaller
(20:13):
populations and just word ofmouth and, honestly, just the
sheriff's department drivingevery street he possibly could
with a bullhorn telling peopleto get out.
But I don't think it's.
It was just a very frustratingfrom a from a public information
standpoint to not have not havethe media take us seriously,
(20:38):
you know, and in and take thatin contrast to Palisades, right,
if we're going to sort of lookat a compare and contrast.
It was the same situation.
It was an extreme fire behaviorwith very long runs of fire
impacting communities, but theyweren't overly populated
communities and so the newsdidn't pick it up.
Tom Mueller (21:00):
It was a one of the challenges that we face, you
know, out there, especially inthe current climate, where
health and safety are at risk orcan be at risk very quickly
(21:24):
based on the turn of the weather, turn of the fire, whatever it
is.
So those are very challengingtimes, okay, well, guys, I think
we're going to wrap up here.
Katie, I want to thank you forjoining us and for sharing some
of your stories with that.
We really appreciate you comingout and best of luck with
Control Line Communications.
(21:46):
We look for big things from you.
And thanks again for yourmilitary service as well.
Thanks, kenny.
Katy O'Hara (21:56):
Thanks Mark, thanks Tom.
Tom Mueller (21:58):
And that's going to do it for this episode of the
Leading in a Crisis podcast.
Thanks again for joining us andwe'll see you soon for another
episode.
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