Shoreline Cruise’s “Ethan Allen” Sinks, Kills 21, What are ya Gonna Do?

I agree that every company, large or small should have a crisis management plan handy in case of an emergency. Life is so unpredictable- you can never be too safe.

Crisis management, or crisis communication, is a term that seems to be coming up a lot in conversations with classmates and friends. My understanding of crisis communication is an appropriate, timely response to crisis that takes into consideration the current public and political environment in which the crisis occurs, the organizational foundation of the company facing crisis, and human nature.

As public relations students, many of us have taken a Case Studies & Ethics class which divides several areas of public relations into short, general chapters describing the topic and using several cases as examples of good or bad responses. However, I don’t think that five pages of crisis communication will prepare any of us accurately for an actual crisis. That is why I think your advice about seeking out ways to practice these skills is beneficial. I had never thought to ask family and friends who own small businesses about their crisis communication plan or if I could help them prepare for possible crises. In the end, the proposal is advantageous for both parties because many students learn best from hands on experience and the organization is more prepared for any problems that might come its way.

Except it was not a mom and pop business. The company that arranged the trip is being reported as Shoreline Tours and Travel, a Canadian Company. The boat licenses of Shoreline Cruises, which owns the Ethan Allen. Their web site actually has a portion talking about safety, adequate insurance coverage and additional insurance options.

Link

At Allen’s suggestion, I am letting you all know that Traverse Legal is Enrico Schaefer, an attorney in Traverse City, MI. One of the reasons I became a lawyer is because of the impact I can have on safety. The chances of me ending up with any clients as a result of my blogging are pretty close to zero. However, my chance at affecting the investigation, people’s views about safety and providing a memorial to those who died (let’s not forget) are achievable. This morning I awake hoping that this nonsense about how the coast guard is now to blame for having outdated capacity limits passes quickly. The Ethan Allen had decades of use on Lake George as a tour boat. Either it had prior issues with stability or there is another explanation that we have yet to discover. The comment by the prior captain that 50 passengers were too many is the most interesting thing to come out of this thus far. It is up to the owner/operator to know their own vessel and not simply to load it to its coast guard limit because that increases their revenue.

Crisis management/Crisis communication is a must for every organization, and I think pretty much everyone agrees with that. The question that comes around is how to effectively reach a mass audience when a crisis occurs. The Alaska Airlines incident is an excellent example of crisis management. They came out with their message promptly and kept the information updated at all times. An organization must be timely in their response. I am a PR student and this is the first time I have even heard of the incident. I feel like coverage of this disaster is being overlooked for many reasons I don’t think is necessary to get into. However, when 21 people die in a boating accident, that is news and a crisis. A whole reputation and image of a company is at stake.

The only way to learn an effective crisis plan is to learn the way of others in the workplace like you mentioned. I feel that many people think it could never happen to them. You never know what could happen at any given second in the day. This boating accident is small in the grand scheme of things and this should serve as a warning to organizations to rethink their plan of action in a crisis.

Katie is right, five pages in a textbook can not teach us effectively how to manage a crisis plan. Getting real world experience and learning from the best is how students are going to learn to be effective crisis communicators. Hopefully, PR students can take something back from this and become experts in crisis management.

A crisis plan is something that every organization should have. Understanding crisis management and knowing exactly how you plan to handle an emergency is essential in PR. It shows that you are on top of things, that you care about your company and the public. Alaska Airlines seemed to have handled the situation in the best way and did a perfect job communicating the problem honestly to the public.

My three older brothers and my parents own their own businesses. I have actually talked to them before about crisis management and I know that they have each established some time of crisis plan. Their businesses are all very different, and it’s interesting to hear about how they each plan to handle an emergency. No matter how big or small your company is, something can always happen and you should always be prepared for the worst.

For example, my brother Matt was seriously injured on the job one day. He had informed his employees beforehand of exactly what to do, and things ran smoothly while he was out of work and in the hospital. By already training employees on how to handle this type of emergency, the business didn’t lose jobs, time or money. Everyone was calm and informed. If Shoreline Cruises ran their company like this or like Alaska Airlines, they would be a lot better off.

After reading this posting this morning I went to class and it just happened that the lecture for today was on crisis planning. One of the top priorities of crisis planning is to communicate with the public. It seems like there are too many unanswered question about the Ethan Allen and why this accident happened. It’s pretty obvious that Shoreline Cruises did not have a very detailed crisis plan if one at all. I want to know why they haven’t posted anything on the Ethan Allen website. More people are going to look at it over the Shoreline Cruises web page.

The Shoreline Cruisers’ web page states that “Shoreline Cruises has been in the passenger boat business on Lake George for more than 27 years, and until Sunday, we have had a perfect passenger safety record.� I am sure they have acquired a false sense of comfort over the years that nothing could ever happen to them. However, accidents do happen.

I am very impressed with Alaska Airlines and how they handled their crisis. I agree with Katie in that you can have a crisis plan ready but nothing can completely prepare you for a crisis such as this. But it can only help to look at other organizations such as Alaska Airlines and their experience and learn from them. Then use what they learn in their own crisis planning.

And a hat tip to you, Allan.

This is a marvelous challenge to work through before your boat capsizes.

I have been totally amazed at how many clients in the past have balked at funding crisis management, and how many look at all the scenarios as silliness … UNTIL.

That UNTIL has taken down more than a few boats. It has capsized many careers of bright people who did not see the crash coming and had no plan to move fast when it did.

Thanks Allan. It’s been a few days since the boat accident happened and all I’ve heard was that it tipped over because of a wake from another boat. But, shouldn’t tour boats be designed to hold a lot people and not tip over from a small wave. Clearly the company is at fault here and they know it. They suddenly went into hinding as soon as the accident happened and they are trying to cover themselves up.

This company obviously did not have a crisis plan. All though boating accidents happen every day they were not prepared and it shows. It is going to be difficult for the company to recover from such a horrific accident. They should have addressed the public first and taken the blame for it instead saying “no comment” or not responding at all. They have gone about dealing with this in totally the wrong way. They have lost the trust of loyal customers and any one who was considering to take a boat ride with them.

I understand that they are trying not to draw attention to this disaster, but it is already in the media so they need to address the issue promptly and accurately and not beat around the bush. It’s sad that a boating company doesn’t have a crisis plan.

Crisis management is a must for every business. Businesses should always prepare for the worst. Like Allan said, even mom and pop businesses should have a crisis plan.

Shoreline Cruises should of been more prepared for this type of incident. By having a business on the water, you should be ready for capsize or someone drowning. Yes, they have had a perfect passenger record for the past 27 years, but like i said every business should prepare for the worst.

I was also very impressed by the Alaska Airlines. Having a crisis management plan probably helped them from having more chaos than they already had. I agree with Natalie and Katie, have a crisis management plan ready is great, but you can never prepare for the worst. I can take this back to FEMA and Hurricane Katrina. Stop pointing fingers, FEMA learns from every hurricane, no one is prepared for a catastrophic event.

The topic of crisis management seems to be everywhere recently, which shows how important it is. Last week’s lecture in my PR writing class was on crisis planning and what must be done.

We learned that the priority is to communicate with the publics. At is necessary to take action if it was your organizations fault. Be honest about it, and don’t speculate or make things up if you don’t want to answer something. Shoreline Cruise did put a message up on their website, but I don’t believe that it covered all that it should. There should of been more inofrmation about what they are going to do to fix what has happened, and give all the information they have.
We also learned about different types of responses people can give during a criss. From attacking the accuser, making an excuse to denying everything that has occured,it will only result in more trouble in the end. It is important for a company to give a full apology, as well as take steps to repair what happened, to make sure it will not happen again.

For all of this to happen, a crisis plan is necessary. From the way that the owners of Ethan Allen have dealt with the tragedy, I find it hard to believe that they had a crisis plan ready. I learned most from the lecture the importance of being prepared for anything. It is necessary to expect the unexpected and plan for it. To me, this couldn’t be a fun job; sitting around thinking about worst case scenaros and how to prevent/fix them if they ever were to happen. But the bottom line is, anything can happen, and companies and organizatoins must be prepared to deal with it and to grow from the situation.

It’s hard to know for sure what Ethan Allen’s crisis plan involved, if they had one at all, but I believe that they have one now. And they will make it a priority to always have one. From this tragedy, if anything positive can come from it, I hope it is that other companies will see the importance of a plan and take action.

I’ve never really thought about a crisis plan for such a horrible event. I mean I always knew that PR’s job was partially to clean up crises. But, I never really thought that there was anything that could be done in a situation like the tragedies above. However, I suppose at a time like that an organization’s main response is to get the facts out there and get as much help available. While the facts may be hard to hear, facts are better than a flurry of assumptions or speculation.
A webpage devoted to two-way communication with the public as well as updates, breaking news, phone numbers, and section devoted to press and media communications is an excellent way to effectively and efficiently communicate with a large public.
While the crises can’t be covered up and attention can’t be diverted from them, PR in the organization can make it easy for vicims and/or victim’s families to better cope with the crisis. As was brought up in the blog, the crisis reaction given as an example was well planned and thought out which is exactly what other organizations should do for potential crisis.

Like almost every other student that has left a comment on this blog, I, too, am in the PR Writing class that lectured on crisis communication. We were also assigned to create a crisis communication plan for companies we had created earlier in the semester. My group in the class had created an event planning and consulting company in the beginning of the semester, and now we must create a communicationi plan and respond to crisises others have created for us. Honestly, I didn’t really think an event planning company could have much of a crisis plan, but I’ve learned differently this weekend.

This semester I am interning with an event planning firm and we held a bridal show yesterday with a little over 25 vendors and many many brides. A problem we heard from the show was concerns of advertising that was promised to vendors by the advertising firm. Not our fault, but something we had to deal with. No crisis, but an apparent problem for the weekend. I think we can take many of the same concepts from a crisis plan and employ them into many other communications plans.

For example, be honest. Be timely. Don’t make up any answers, and have the information readily available. Once again, these are several things that I encountered over the weekend and had to consider when I was giving information.

Back to the crisis situation. I understand the PR perspective of wanting to share the good news to overshadow the bad news. But I believe part of PR is knowing and serving your publics. That means giving them the information they want and need to hear. Not all of it is good, but important nonetheless. Crisis communication is showing up everywhere lately and I believe will soon become a part of the communication plan that even the smallest companies view as crucial.

Speaking of crisis management… my mother in law died on the Ethan Allen boat tragedy and I was looking for some leadership from the state of Michigan since these poor people were predominantly from MI. No lines of communication were formed, poor follow up to our requests for information, apparent grandstanding by the governor erroneously stating that all families have been contacted and financial help to bury the victims would be forthcoming.. yada.. yada yada.. bad crisis mgmt to say the least

After reading your post and the numerous comments, I seem to notice a theme… everyone is in total agreement that it is imperative to have a Crisis management/crisis communication plan. I am in total shock that more companies seem to neglect the importance of such a plan until, as Dale pointed out, the boat capsizes.

We are all aware as intelligent humans that accidents happen. Granted many are small issues that are handled “under the radar” but often times things can escalate and be more than we are prepared for. If we know this and are aware that such things happen why do so many companies refuse to see the writing on the wall? With all the examples out there of how companies continually mishandle crisis situations,(i.e. the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989) I would think other companies would step to the plate and decide to be proactive and not reactive.

Alaska Airlines is an excellent example of how a company should operate during a crisis. I had not, until this posting, heard anything about this particular crash and I think for good reason. Alaska Airlines was prepared with a worst case scenario. They implemented it and covered all possible angles in a very timely manner. Things were handled and dealt with as they arose allowing the public to maintain trust in this airline even during a crisis. It was handled neatly and put to bed, so to speak, thereby causing less of a stir in the general public.

If we could all approach crisis management with such forward thinking crisis issues like the Ethan Allen is facing wouldn’t even exist.

I think that it was necessary for the Alaska airlines to have prepared a crisis communications plan that they did. I also think it is extremely impressive that it was handled in such an efficient and effective way. I haven’t heard of too many companies/buisness that have had a crisis plan that was put to action immediately.
I think, though, that it is obvious to PR practitioners/students that a crisis plan is almost mandatory in any company setting and that it is not as obvious to a lot of other people that are not in this profession. I think this is part of the reason of why public relations is so important in many situationis. To me, it seems that there are still so many people that don’t correctly understand the different aspects of public relations and the importance that it can play in their company/buisness.
As for the situation with Ethan Allan, I am saddened by why it seems like to me as neglectful to their publics and customers. I think that is seems irresponsible that someone would not take into account that this could happen to a boat. I hope that someone has reached them by now and they are implementing a way to communicate better. It seems they might have thought that they would not have to communicate to people and it is now beginning to backfire. I also hope that they are telling the truth about the entire situation and that they are beginning to create a crisis plan because unfortunately now they know that it can happen to them.

So we are all in agreement that companies should have a crisis plan. I don’t think there is a way to ever be completely prepared for a crisis if the same thing has not ever occurred before, but I can’t believe that some companies do not even try to plan for a crisis, big or small. Even if companies can never be fully prepared, being slightly prepared especially with a crisis communication plan can help.

The Alaska Airlines and Ethan Allen cases are perfect examples of good vs. bad crisis communication. We have learned in our classes, particularly Case Studies & Ethics, that time is the most essential thing to think about when you have to report to the public. Alaska Airlines got their website up and running with information about the crash in just 40 minutes. It would never have been up that quick if there was not a crisis plan set ahead of time. As Tyler said, Alaska Airlines was ready for the worst-case scenario and put the plan into action immediately.

Ethan Allen, on the other hand, with lack of a crisis plan, simply ignored the problem and didn’t place anything on their website about what happened. Even though they were a “mom and pop business” they should have realized that especially with their type of business, a crisis plan should be implemented. It is just sad that it took an accident for them to hopefully realize they need one.

Everyone agrees that a preconceived and detailed crisis communication plan is vital for a company, no matter their size. Crisis communication is one of the most important jobs for public relations practitioners. We must think of every possible scenerio that may arise and create a plan to protect the company’s image and inform the public with all the information they deserve to know.

Crisis communication is difficult. You never know what kind of crisis will occur in a company, however, you must predict each possibility. No company can go into a crisis expecting to “wing it”. A precise and extensive plan must be ready in a moments notice. Should a crisis occur, a company that had a preconcieved crisis plan wold rebound and recover their image faster than a company without one.

I believe Shoreline Cruises fell pray the idea that in case a crisis did occur, they could “wing it”. They believed they could plan as they went according to the situation. This, as Shoreline Cruises discovered, does not work.

If Shoreline Cruises had implemented a crisis plan immediately, they could have maintained a good reputation throughout the process. Instead, they lost trust from all current and future cruise goers.

I’m sure Shoreline Cruises has learned its lesson and will from here on out plan for every crisis imaginable. This incident should be a lesson to all companies big and small. Crisis communication is vital for every company and the sinking of the Ethan Allan is a perfect example why.