Nikole Babb
nbabb@cherryroad.com
Two Butler County area Public Information Officers, (PIO), have collaborated with other regional PIO’s to create a resource group for success. They say this resource and gathering of different PIO’s ensures their success when disaster strikes.
After she experienced and handled the 2022 tornado that devastated the Andover community, City of Andover Public Information Officer Megan Schapaugh wished she had a group to call upon when things went wrong. Now, she does. PIO Power Connections is bridging the gap Schapaugh experienced when she took on her role a short three years ago.
“I wanted to start something to connect with people,” said Schapaugh.
After calling upon a few other PIO’s she knew, she soon had a small group willing to create the resource she and many others need. Alongside Butler County Emergency Management Director Keri Korthals, Harvey County Public Information Specialist Kyle McCaskey, and Sedgwick County Emergency Management Director Julie Stimson, Schapaugh and her colleagues worked to get the word out.
“Because of what happened during the tornado, Sedgwick and Butler County found that even though public information was handled very well and messages were getting out, we realized after the fact that other parties had a voice that we didn’t do a great job of bringing them together,” said Korthals.
Getting the same message from several different entities across to the public is integral when handling an emergency situation. Many times there are over a dozen different organizations or entities that have information to share to the public. One message, one voice is the goal in bringing everyone together.
“We realized nobody knew anybody and that there was no platform to get everyone together,” said Stimson. “Part of our disaster planning is that we want one single message from the departments to collaborate together so we don’t have different departments saying different things.”
The four professionals gathered information of different PIO’s they knew and invited others to come along – emergency PIO’s, law enforcement, fire, government, emergency management and more – the more, the merrier in their opinion. Each quarter they schedule a meeting for everyone registered with the group to meet at a location and listen to a guest speaker or ask a panel their burning questions. Sometimes they are learning new tools or asking a panel the best ways to communicate with each other and even debunking different assumptions.
While the group is education heavy right now, they’re thinking of expanding it to social opportunities as well. The group has been able to meet a variety of PIO’s from the federal attorney’s office to city and more. Each county or city has experience and handled emergency weather differently and is able to offer their best practicies or learn from each other during these meetings.
As of now, there are partners from Butler, Sedgwick, Harvey, Reno and Cowley counties but it isn’t exclusive and is open to other areas if they’d want to join in on the fun. The group is free and travels to different cities for meetups. Most recently they met at the Maize Performing Arts and Aquatic Center to ask questions from a media panel. The panel included Paul Meister with KAKE News, Avery Osen with Good Day Kansas, Tom Shine with KMUW and Nikole Babb with the Times-Gazette.
The next meetup is scheduled for August 14. To join the PIO Power Connections, email Megan Schapaugh at mschapaugh@andoverks.gov.
