How NOT to handle a major crisis

Update: ChemCentral apparently figured this out, several days late, because their web site now has some information. But at the time I wrote this...they were oblivious :)

As a web developer, I guess I'm pretty hard on companies who don't have a clue about how to handle the web as a viable part of their business. So it's hard to imagine that a company the size of ChemCentral, whose exploding plant in Kansas City yesterday forced the evacuation of thousands of people, several schools, and businesses — apparently isn't to be bothered with updating their web site for almost the past year. Meanwhile, a cloud of unknown black smoke, visible for 30 miles, hovers over the city — and we all wonder if their "80th anniversary" celebration last February (touted on their front page) might have been a little less exciting a full year later.

I thought it would be interesting to visit their site and see what they had to say about their devastating fire, or find out what their safety record was, but alas...they haven't bothered to update their "recent news" since April of 2006 — almost a year ago.

This is the kind of thing that should be on every large company's disaster recovery plan: knowing the company web site will get absolutely hammered by every media outlet in the region, by concerned customers, stockholders, and those perhaps in other countries who found the news story, one of the first things to do after a disaster is to POST SOMETHING on your web site. Maybe the facts aren't all known, but at least pretend you are aware! Say something, perhaps as simple as "while we are still determining the facts of the case, we want to express our thanks to the men and women who helped respond to our emergency..." blah blah blah.

I really appreciate how New Life Church did this with the Ted Haggard mess. They may not have liked what was happening, but church leadership took the time and trouble to keep interested parties updated through their web site as the story unfolded — even to the point of posting PDFs of various statements that were read during church about the state of things. I was impressed with their honesty and integrity as they walked through a difficult time.

Now if only Corporate America could follow suit. They should all have a plan in place, and rehearse it often. Who will host the site if the server is inside an affected location (because the files are SURELY kept somewhere in a safe place, right)? Who will handle the choking bandwidth requirements of the web site when every news outlet is looking for names and phone numbers (hello, Akamai)? What's that damn FTP username and password again, anyway? Who developed the site and who writes the press releases that will need to be posted ASAP?

A little planning could have saved ChemCentral a bajillion information-seeking phone calls and a tarnished image in Kansas City because of their nonresponsiveness.